A  HISTORY  OF 
THE  JEWS 


PAUL  GOODMAN 


ifomia 

Dnal 

ity 


A  HISTORY  OF  THE  JFAVS 


}^^viyy*>y  -jj^;)^^ 


Traditional  Portrait  of 

Moses  Maimonides 

With  Facsimile  of  His  Autograph 


HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 


BY 


PAUL  GOODMAN 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

68i  FIFTH  AVENUE 


Published,  J  gig, 
By  E.  p.  Dutton  &  Company 


All  Rights  reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TO 
MY    SON 

MAURICE  PAUL 

THIS   HISTORY   OF   HIS   PEOPLE 
IS   AFFECTIONATELY   DEDICATED 


"  Remember  the  days  of  old. 
Consider  the  years  of  many  generations: 
Ask  thy  father,  and  he  will  shew  thee; 
Thine  elders,  and  they  will  tell  thee." 

Deut.  xxxii.  7. 

"Ye  are  my  witnesses,  saith  the  Lord,  and  my  servant  whom  1 
have  chosen." — Isaiah  xHii.  10. 

"The  life  of  man  is  numbered  by  days: 
The  days  of  Israel  are  without  number." 

Ecclus.  xxxvii.  25. 

"Kingdoms  arise  and  kingdoms  pass  away,  but  Israel  endureth 
for  evermore. "^Midrash. 

"Man  is  made  man  by  history.  The  Jew  recognizes  that  he  is 
made  what  he  is  by  the  history  of  his  fathers,  and  feels  he  is  losing 
his  better  self  so  far  as  he  loses  his  hold  on  his  past  history. 

"The  history  of  Israel  is  the  great  living  proof  of  the  working  of 
Divine  Providence  in  the  affairs  of  the  world.  Alone  among  the 
nations  Israel  has  shared  in  all  great  movements  since  mankind 
became  conscious  of  their  destinies.  If  there  is  no  Divine  purpose 
in  the  long  travail  of  Israel,  it  is  vain  to  seek  for  any  such  purpose 
in  man's  life.  In  the  reflected  light  of  that  purpose  each  Jew  should 
lead  his  life  with  an  added  dignity." — Joseph  Jacobs. 


VIU 


PREFACE 

The  history  of  the  Jews  presents  the  struggles  for  hght  and  hfe 
of  a  people  small  in  numbers  and  negligible  in  political  power  but 
great  in  achievement  and  unparalleled  in  endurance.  This  people, 
whom  the  historians  and  geographers  of  ancient  Hellas  hardly 
deigned  to  notice  as  a  strange  Syrian  tribe,  had  already  then  pro- 
duced one  of  the  most  remarkable  literatures  of  all  time  as  well  as  a 
body  of  men  who  were  later  on  acclaimed  as  the  ethical  and  religious 
teachers  of  mankind.  While  in  their  most  flourishing  political 
state  the  Israelites  formed  only  a  petty  Asiatic  kingdom,  the  de- 
scendants of  those  who  served  the  Pharaohs  and  whose  national 
existence  was  wiped  out  by  Nebuchadnezzar  the  Babylonian  about 
2,500  years  ago  still  represent  one  of  the  most  active  and  progressive 
human  groups  of  to-day. 

What  the  Jews  as  a  Kulturvolk  mean  to  the  world,  not  merely  as 
an  ancient  factor  but  as  one  of  the  living  forces  of  modern  times, 
may  be  gauged  by  a  comparison  of  the  contributions  which  the 
Jews  have  made  during  the  last  century  to  all  aspects  of  civilization 
with  the  almost  inappreciable  activities  during  the  same  period  of 
the  historically  and  politically  favoured  Greeks. 

If  we  take  away  the  Jews  from  the  realms  of  thought  and  life — 
if  we  imagine  that  there  had  not  existed  those  who  gave  birth  to 
the  spiritual,  ethical  and  dogmatic  forces  of  Christianity;  that 
Mohammedanism,  the  Arabian  replica  of  a  militant  Judaism,  had 
never  seen  the  world;  that  we  knew  nothing  of  those  and  other 
Hebraic  Influences  which,  in  name,  substance  and  action,  have 
repeatedly  changed  the  course  of  History — then  both  Eastern  and 
Western  civilization  would  appear  to  us  beyond  recognition. 

The  Jews  are  one  of  the  very  rare  races  with  a  definite  mission 
in  the  development  of  mankind — a  mission  of  which  the  actors  are 
conscious,  if,  at  times,  unwilling  agents,  destined  to  play  the  part 
of  historic  advocates  for  the  freedom  of  the  human  conscience,  in 
contravention  of  their  own  jealous  and  uncompromising  adherence 
to  ethical  Monotheism  and  to  the  moral  purpose  of  human  life — 
the  imperishable  Jewish  contributions  to  the  foundations  of  civiliza- 
tion. 

The  Jews  have,  however,  not  only  given  birth  to  prophets  of  the 
mission  of  Israel,  but,  strangest  of  all,  they  have  also  produced  the 

ix 


X  PREFACE 

greatest  adversaries  of  their  own  claims  and  corporate  existence. 
Paul,  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  who  boasted  of  being  a  Hebrew 
of  the  Hebrews,  was  the  dogmatic  founder  of  the  world-conquering 
rehgion  of  which  Jesus  the  Messiah  (Christ)  was  the  spiritual  and 
ethical  inspiration;  Spinoza,  the  most  dissolving  philosopher  of 
the  modern  age,  broke  the  trammels  of  supernaturalism;  Karl 
Marx,  the  scientific  creator  of  the  Socialist  movement,  became  the 
cosmopolitan  prophet  of  the  disinherited  of  the  whole  human  race. 

In  spite  of  the  extraordinary  kaleidoscopic  changes  in  Jewish 
history — from  the  conquest  of  the  now  extinct  and  forgotten 
Canaanites  to  the  combat  with  the  widespread  and  powerful  forces 
of  modern  Anti-Semitism — an  extensive  survey  of  it  presents  a 
cycle  of  manifestations  and  problems  that  continually  repeats  itself. 
In  substance,  Jewish  history  is  concentrated  on  the  never-ending 
struggle  between  the  universalistic  and  particularistic  tendencies  of 
Jewish  thought  and  life,  and,  from  the  conflicts  between  Prophecy 
and  Priesthood  to  those  of  Nationalism  and  Assimilation,  we  discern 
the  same  heroic  effort  to  save  the  Jewish  life  by  losing  it.  Never 
has  such  solidarity  been  exhibited  between  the  scattered  atoms  of 
a  race  that  frequently  even  lack  molecular  attraction,  yet  never  has 
a  people  risen  to  such  sublime  heights,  with  entire  oblivion  of  itself. 
It  is  because  throughout  this  Jewish  struggle  for  life  there  appears 
one  underlying,  fundamental  purpose — the  fulfilment  of  law  and 
prophecy  in  their  workings  in  History. 

Jewish  history  has  shared  the  fate  of  the  Jews  in  that  it  has  been 

treated  either  from  an  offensive  or  defensive,  and,  too  frequently, 

from  the  double-edged  didactic,  point  of  view.     In  the  following 

pages,  the  course  of  Jewish  history  has  been  traced  without  reference 

to  the  question  whether  the  Jews  have  the  right  to  exist.     The 

subject  of  Judaism  as  a  world-religion  has  been  fully  treated  by  me 

elsewhere,^  but,  Irrespective  of  the  justification  or  condemnation  of 

Judaism,  our  interest  is  surely  due  to  the  history  of  a  people  which, 

according  to  the  natural  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  has  justified 

itself  by  Its  very  existence. 

* 
*  * 

I  am  deeply  indebted  to  the  Rev.  David  Bueno  de  Mesquita  for 

the  reading  and  revision  of  the  MS.  and  proofs  of  the  book. 

P.  G. 

London, 

November  14,  1909. 

*  The  Synagogue  and  the  Church,  being  a  Contribution  to  the  Apolo- 
getics of  Judaism  (Routledge,    1908). 


CONTENTS 


Chapter  I. — The  Ancient  Israelites 

The  Historical  Records— The  Patriarchs— Israel  in  Egypt— Moses— 
The  Exodus — The  Torah  of  Moses — The  Conquest  of  the  Land 
— The  Judges— The  United  Monarchy — The  Kingdom  of  Israel — 
The  Kingdom  of  Judah— The  Prophets  .  pp.    1-12 

Chapter  II. — The  Second  Temple 

The  Babylonian  Captivity— The  Restoration — The  Samaritans — 
Ezra  and  Nehemiah — A  Silent  Evolution — The  Conflict  with 
Hellenism — The  Maccabean  Revolt — The  Hasmonean  Dynasty 
— The  Herodian  Dynasty — Pharisees,  Sadducees  and  Essenes — 
The  Rise  of  Rabbinic  Schools— Hellenistic  Judaism— The  Rise 
of  Christianity^The  Spread  of  Judaism — The  Shadows  of  the 
Roman  War — The  War  with  Rome — The  Fall  of  Judea— The 
Last  Struggle  for  Independence        ....      pp.     13-41 

Chapter  III. — The  Talmudic  Age 

The  Dispersion— The  Rally— Judaism  in  Babylonia— The  Talmud — 
Under  the  Cross— Under  Neo-Persian  Dominion — Under  the 
Crescent — In  Western  Europe — Social  and  Economic  Condi- 
tions             PP-    42-62 

Chapter  IV. — The  Golden  Age  of  Judaism 

The  Geonim— Karaism- The  Chazars— The  Spanish  Epoch— His- 
pano-Jewish  Culture— Moses  Maimonides— The  Franco-Ger- 
man Schools pp.    63-80 

Chapter  V. — The  Dark  Ages 

The  General  State— Sufferings  and  Trials— The  Forces  of  Resistance 
— The  Crusades— In  Medieval  Erigland— In  Central  Europe- 
Spain  and  the  Inquisition — Reaction  Within — The  Cabbalahy— 
Pseudo-Messiahs— Italy— Turkey— Poland— The  Cossack  Ris- 
ing—The Chassidim— The  Rise  of  Tolerance — Spinoza — In  the 
Middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Century    .        .        .        .pp.  81-130 


xii  CONTENTS 

Chapter  VI. — The  Era  of  Assimilation 

The  Modern  Epoch — The  Growth  of  Jewish  Population — Moses 
Mendelssohn — The  Enlightenment  and  Neo-Hebrew  Literature 
— Yiddish — The  Science  of  Judaism — The  Reform  of  Judaism — 
The  Struggle  for  Emancipation — Emancipation  m  England. 
— Russia — The  United  States  of  America — Self-Emancipation — 
Anti-Semitism — Zionism — Modern  Problems.  pp.  131-158 

Bibliography P-  159 

Index pp.  161-164 


thf 

HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 


CHAPTER  I 
The  Ancient  Israelites 

§  I.  The  Historical  Records. — The  history  of  the 
Jews  reaches  back  to  a  primeval  age  of  human  civilization, 
to  those  archaic  times  when  gods  walked  the  earth  and 
held  intercourse  with  the  children  of  men.  But  whereas 
the  descent  of  other  nations  of  remote  antiquity  is  lost  in 
the  dim  mists  of  mythologj",  the  collection  of  literature 
known  as  the  Bible  has  preserved  a  remarkably  simple, 
and  yet  vivid,  account  of  the  origins  and  early  history  of 
the  people  called  the  Hebrews,  Israelites  or  Jews. 

§  2.  The  Patriarchs. — Abraham,  the  Hebrew  (i.  e. 
from  the  other  side  of  the  river  [Euphrates] ),  the  first  of 
the  patriarchs  from  whom  the  Jews  trace  their  descent, 
came  of  so-called  Semitic  stock  from  Ur,  in  Chaldea, 
which  was  then,  more  than  2000  years  b.C.e.,  an  impor- 
tant centre  of  civilization.  Tradition  has  it  that  a  divine 
call  came  to  him  to  leave  his  home  and  country  and  to 
proceed  southward  to  the  land  of  Canaan  (Phcrnicia), 
or  Palestine  (the  land  of  the  Philistines),  while  he  re- 
ceived the  promise  that  his  descendants  should  live  there 
as  a  great  nation  and  play  an  unique  part  in  the  history 
of  the  human  race.    In  the  national  records,  his  son  Isaac 


2  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

and  grandson  Jacob  (or  Israel)  are  described  as  pastoral 
chieftains,  who  moved  about  with  their  flocks  in  the  then 
thinly  inhabited  land  of  Canaan.  In  the  course  of  their 
migrations  the  family  eventually  settled  in  the  rich  pas- 
ture-lands of  neighbouring  Egypt. 

§  3.  Israel  in  Egypt. — It  was  in  Egypt,  in  the  course 
of  centuries,  that,  from  a  small  clan,  the  Children  of 
Israel  (B'ne  Israel)  rose  to  be  a  people  considerable  in 
numbers.  Living  on  a  frontier  exposed  to  the  inroads  of 
numerous  marauding  enemies  attracted  by  the  wealth  and 
culture  of  Egypt,  the  Israelites  incurred  the  suspicion 
that  they  would  prove  dangerous  to  the  country,  to  the 
inhabitants  of  which  they  were  indeed  entirely  foreign 
in  race,  religion,  and  occupation.  To  prevent  such  a 
probable  contingency,  the  Israelites  were  turned  into 
Pharaonic  serfs,  and  set  to  labour  at  those  gigantic  works 
and  monuments  w^hich  have  repiained  the  wonder  of  pos- 
terity. The  barbaric  cruelties  enacted  by  their  Egyptian 
taskmasters  broke  the  spirit  of  this  shepherd-people. 

§  4.  Moses. — At  such  a  critical  time  there  appeared 
on  the  scene  one  who,  by  the  stupendous  and  enduring 
character  of  his  work  and  the  transcendent  effect  of  his 
world-mission,  not  only  stands  out  as  the  most  luminous 
figure  of  antiquity,  but  as  a  mighty  conqueror  of  the  hu- 
man soul,  whose  influence  has  been  pulsating  throughout 
the  ages  with  ever-increasing  vitality.  Moses,  who  was 
to  become  the  leader  and  teacher  of  the  Children  of  Is- 
rael, appears  to  have  been  brought  up  as  an  Egyptian  and 
to  have  taken  no  interest  or  share  in  the  servitude  of  his 
people.  It  was  by  an  accident  that  he  became  alive  to  the 
slavery  which  crushed  his  kith  and  kin.  On  seeing  one 
day  an  Egj^ptian  taskmaster  beating  one  of  the  Israelites, 
the  generous  indignation  and  racial  consciousness  of  Moses 
were  roused,  and  he  killed  the  Egj'ptian.  To  escape 
Egyptian  vengeance  for  his  daring  act,  he  left  the  country. 
But  the  enslavement  and  wrongs  of  his  people  pursued 
him  to  the  wilderness  of  the  Sinaitic  peninsula  to  which 


THE  ANCIENT  ISRAELITES  3 

he  betook  himself.  While  engaged  there  in  the  peaceful 
pursuit  of  a  shepherd  his  musings  brought  before  him  a 
vision  of  the  deliverance  of  his  brethren,  and  he  obeyed 
the  voice  which,  recalling  to  him  the  purpose  of  the 
Eternal  (JHVH)  in  His  promise  to  the  patriarchs  of 
old,  bade  him  to  lead  the  people  of  Israel  out  of  Eg}pt. 

§  5.  The  Exodus. — The  enfranchisement  of  a  nation 
of  slaves  trodden  under  the  heel  of  a  mighty  military 
power — such  was  the  task  which  presented  itself  to  Moses, 
who  was  by  nature  a  man  halting  in  speech  and  of  humble 
disposition.  But  when  the  appeal  came  to  the  Israelites 
to  free  themselves  from  the  Egyptian  yoke,  "they  heark- 
ened not  unto  Moses  for  anguish  of  spirit  and  for  cruel 
bondage."  The  extrordinary  self-assertion  and  confidence 
which  Moses,  in  conjunction  with  his  brother  Aaron, 
inspired  in  the  down-trodden  Israelites,  their  deliverance 
from  the  crushing  tyranny  of  the  Egyptian,  as  well  as  the 
cohesion  and  discipline  maintained  among  such  a  vast 
horde  of  rebel  slaves,  are  more  eloquent  testimony  than 
all  the  recorded  supernatural  signs  and  wonders  to  the 
inscrutable  spiritual  force  which  then  brought  the  religion 
of  Israel  into  being. 

§  6.  The  Torah  of  Moses. — The  exodus  of  the  Is- 
raelites from  Eg}'pt  (about  1200  b.c.e.)  became  the 
most  far-reaching  event,  and  has  always  been  considered 
as  the  central  incident,  in  the  political  and  religious  his- 
tory of  the  Jews.  With  the  liberation  of  the  Israelites 
from  Eg}ptian  bondage,  there  began  their  life  as  a  free 
people,  destined  to  take  possession  of  that  land  of  Canaan 
to  which  their  steps  were  now  directed.  The  invasion  and 
conquest  of  that  country  might  have  been  accomplished 
with  more  or  less  success  if  a  daring  and  skilled  warrior 
had  led  the  Israelites,  while  their  rough  patriarchal  and 
tribal  organizations  and  rudimentary  monotheistic  tra- 
ditions would  have  furnished  them  w  ith  the  necessary  po- 
litical and  religious  bonds  of  a  national  life.  The  Is- 
raelites were,  however,  not  merely  to  supplant  the  inhab- 


4  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

itants  of  Canaan,  but,  as  a  people  providentially  selected 
for  a  high  purpose  in  the  education  of  the  human  race, 
were  to  form  an  ideal  polity,  where  individual  and  pub- 
lic righteousness  should  be  the  guiding  and  binding  prin- 
ciples of  law  and  order;  where  the  authority  and  worship 
of  the  one  God  of  Israel  was  to  hold  undivided  sway — 
so  that  the  existence  of  the  people  of  Israel  should  be 
assured  for  ever. 

The  corner-stone  of  the  Torah  (Instruction,  or  Law) 
of  Moses  was  provided  by  the  Ten  Words  (the  Deca- 
logue), which  solemnly  proclaimed  the  absolute  and  un- 
divided unity  and  incorporeality  of  God,  and  gave  a 
concise  epitome  of  the  moral  law  which  was  to  govern 
the  lives  of  the  Israelites. 

In  order  to  keep  them  effectively  separated  as  a  people 
dedicated  to  a  high  service,  the  Torah  ordained  rites  and 
observances  which  were  intended  to  strengthen  the  na- 
tional consciousness  and  the  moral  fibre  of  the  Israelite 
by  guiding  and  educating  him  in  the  fear  and  love  of 
God,  and  it  also  contained  laws  and  regulations  for  good 
government,  both  of  the  whole  community  and  of  its 
component  parts.  Apart  from  its  unswerving  insistence 
on  the  monotheistic  conception  and  worship  of  God,  the 
outstanding  features  of  the  Torah  of  Moses — whether 
promulgated  by  him  or  developed  later  on — were  the 
sacredness  and  moral  purpose  of  human  life  and  the  equal- 
ity of  all  without  distinction,  including  the  foreigner 
and  the  slave,  before  the  law.  In  this  the  Israelites  were 
to  form  a  striking  contrast  to  the  natives  of  Canaan, 
against  whom  and  their  seductive  immoral  polytheism 
the  Torah  of  Moses  pronounced  itself  with  ruthless  se- 
verity. With  the  claim  of  authority  from  on  high,  and 
an  appeal  to  the  divine  in  man,  the  Torah  demanded 
personal  holiness  as  well  as  justice  and  righteousness  in 
social  relations.  The  tender  mercy  to  be  shown  to  the 
weak  and  the  needy,  and  an  exceptionally  high  sense  of 
consideration  for  the  unprotected  foreigner,  are  remark- 


THE  ANCIENT  ISRAELITES  S 

able  traits  in  the  Torah  of  Moses,  which  was  later  on 
summarized  in  tlic  love  of  God  with  all  one's  heart,  soul 
and  belongings,  and  the  love  of  the  fellow-man,  even 
though  a  stranger,  as  oneself, 

§  7.  The  Conquest  of  the  Land. — It  was  about 
1 1 60  B.C.  that  the  Israelites  invaded  Canaan  by  crossing 
the  river  Jordan  under  the  leadership  of  Joshua,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Moses.  Of  the  tribes  into  which  the  people  of 
Israel  was  divided,  some  had  contented  themselves  by  stay- 
ing behind  and  settling  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  Jor- 
dan, for  the  invaders  met  with  fierce  resistance  on  the 
part  of  the  natives.  The  holy  war  which  had  been  pro- 
claimed against  them  was  for  centuries  carried  on  with 
only  partial  success,  and  although  the  Israelites  were  able 
to  overrun  the  country,  and  to  gain  a  firm  footing  there, 
they  had  often  to  submit  to  serious  reverses  and  to  the 
humiliating  yoke  of  their  enemies.  In  these  sanguinary 
struggles  for  the  possession  of  the  land,  the  Israelites  de- 
veloped a  martial  disposition,  which  marks  that  epoch  as 
the  heroic  period  of  their  history.  The  rugged  wildness  of 
Israelitish  life  in  those  times  stands  out  in  striking  con- 
trast to  the  regulating  and  restraining  influences  which 
made  themselves  felt  in  later  ages. 

§  8.  The  Judges. — The  frequent  disasters  that  over- 
took the  Israelites,  and  which  were  largely  due  to  their 
divisions  and  tribal  jealousies,  produced  a  new  kind  of 
leader,  known  by  the  title  of  Judges  (Shophetim,  cf. 
the  Carthaginian  Sufifetes).  They  were  men  who  by  some 
act  of  public  valour  or  sagacity  had  proved  their  fitness 
to  lead  the  people  against  oppressors  or  rebels.  Certain 
of  these  judges,  like  Samson,  distinguished  themselves  by 
personal  feats  of  prowess,  but  usually  they  were  success- 
ful commanders  whom  their  grateful  tribesmen  or  ad- 
herents invested  with  the  authority  of  a  military  and 
civil  dictator.  There  appear  to  have  been  women  also 
who  were  accepted  as  Judges,  and  one  of  them,  Deborah, 
exercised  considerable  influence.     The  last  and  greatest 


6  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

of  the  Judges  was  Samuel,  who  was  recognized  by  the 
whole  people.  But  the  old  age  of  Samuel  and  the  press- 
ing danger  of  the  Canaanlte  enemies,  convinced  the  di- 
vided and  democratically  disposed  tribes  of  Israel,  even 
against  the  urgent  advice  of  Samuel,  that  they  required 
a  common  ruler  who  would  lead  them  to  war  and  judge 
them  in  times  of  peace. 

§  9.  The  United  Monarchy. — The  first  one  select- 
ed for  the  dignity  of  king  was  Saul,  a  man  of  commanding 
presence  and  proved  military  abilit}.  His  many  success- 
ful campaigns,  especially  against  the  Philistines,  who 
still  threatened  the  security  and  independence  of  the  Is- 
raelites, as  well  as  the  partially  re-established  political 
unity  of  the  people,  justified  both  the  office  and  the  selec- 
tion. But  private  troubles,  brought  about  by  differences 
with  his  former  patron,  Samuel,  and  by  jealousy  of  the 
remarkable  martial  exploits  of  his  armour-bearer  David, 
made  the  end  of  Saul's  reign  an  unhappy  one,  and  in  a 
disastrous  battle  he  put  an  end  to  his  life. 

With  David,  Saul's  successor  on  the  throne,  there  be- 
gins a  period  of  great  prestige  and  prosperity  for  the 
Israelites.  David,  who  was  justly  described  as  "cunning 
in  playing,  a  mighty  man  of  valour,  a  man  of  war  and 
prudent  in  speech,"  raised  them  to  an  important  military 
power,  and  established  the  short-lived  stability  and  unity 
of  his  people.  He  conquered  Jerusalem,  and  made  this, 
the  Eternal  City  of  the  Jews,  the  political  and  religious 
capital  of  his  kingdom.  The  extraordinary  magnetic 
influence  exercised  by  David  on  the  Israelites  and  the 
halo  with  which  they  surrounded  his  reign,  he  bequeathed 
to  his  family,  which  became  recognized  as  the  legitimate 
dynasty  of  Jewish  rulers.  Endowed  with  a  poetic  genius 
of  a  high  order,  he  laid  the  foundations  of  that  collection 
of  Hebrew  devotional  literature,  the  Psalms,  which  has 
stirred  the  hearts  of  men  of  countless  generations,  of  all 
races  and  all  climes. 

In  the  dispute  which  arose  concerning  the  succession  to 


THE  ANCIENT  ISRAELITES  7 

David's  throne,  he  himself  selected  his  son  Solomon,  who 
developed  his  father's  acliievements  by  raising  the  kingdom 
to  a  still  higher  state  of  strength  and  magnificence,  Solo- 
mon, who  was  the  most  important  king  of  his  day  be- 
tween the  Euphrates  and  the  border  of  Egypt,  endeared 
himself  to  his  subjects  by  building  a  national  temple  of 
remarkable  splendour  on  Mount  Moriah  in  Jerusalem 
(973),  and  by  the  prestige  which  now  distinguished  the 
Israelites  among  the  conquered  and  surrounding  nations. 
Solomon's  friendship  with  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  was 
turned  into  a  commercial  alliance  between  the  powerful 
Israelite  and  the  enterprising  Phoenician.  The  joint  mari- 
time expeditions  which  were  sent  out  by  them  from  the 
port  of  Ezion-Geber,  on  the  Red  Sea,  as  well  as  the 
skilled  Tyrian  workmen  lent  to  Solomon,  brought  to  the 
agricultural  Israelites  a  vast  measure  of  wealth  and  ar- 
tistic productions.  His  reputation  for  wisdom,  for  the 
composition  of  gnomic  sayings  and  riddles,  gave  him  an 
added  lustre  in  the  memory  of  the  Israelites. 

Solomon  was  the  Grand  Monarque  of  the  Israelites, 
and,  like  the  French  Louis  XIV,  the  glories  of  his  reign 
involved  the  ultimate  ruin  of  the  country.  His  matri- 
monial alliances  with  the  king  of  Egj'pt  and  other  foreign 
sovereigns,  as  well  as  the  creation  of  a  large  Oriental 
harem,  established  in  Jerusalem  the  authorized  worship 
of  various  idolatries  which  aroused  the  ire  of  those  zeal- 
ous for  the  exclusive  worship  of  the  God  of  Israel,  while 
the  extravagance  of  his  rule  and  the  accompanying  intro- 
duction of  new,  burdensome  taxation  and  forced  labour 
brought  disaffection  among  his  subjects  and  the  disrup- 
tion of  the  kingdom  after  his  death. 

§  10.  The  Kingdom  of  Israel. — The  division  of  the 
Hebrew  monarchy  into  two  parts,  Judah  and  Israel,  was 
the  most  momentous  national  event  since  the  invasion  of 
Canaan.  The  smouldering  disaffection  and  the  jealousies 
of  the  northern  tribes  broke  out  into  an  open  flame  on 
the  accession  of  Solomon's  son,  Rehoboam.     The  revolt 


8  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

was  headed  by  Jeroboam,  formerly  an  officer  in  Solomon's 
service,  who,  owing  to  a  conspiracy,  had  been  forced  to 
escape  to  Egj'pt.  Jeroboam  returned  to  his  native  land 
with  the  favour  of  the  king  of  Eg\pt,  whose  interest  it 
was  to  weaken  the  formidable  power  of  the  Hebrew 
kingdom.  A  deputation,  headed  by  the  former  rebel 
Jeroboam,  was  sent  to  Rehoboam  to  demand  guarantees 
for  the  rights  of  the  northern  tribes  which  had  been 
violated  by  Solomon,  but  the  new  king  imperiously  re- 
fused to  redress  any  grievances.  In  the  successful  revo- 
lution which  ensued,  Jeroboam  was  elected  to  reign  over 
the  so-called  Ten  Tribes,  under  the  title  of  King  of 
Israel. 

The  kingdom  of  Israel,  which  existed  for  about  two 
centuries,  was  troubled  by  frequent  dynastic  disturb- 
ances, palace  revolutions,  conspiracies  and  assassinations. 
Jeroboam,  the  first  king  of  Israel,  set  himself  to  widen 
the  breach  between  the  two  Hebrew  states,  and,  to  pre- 
vent the  religious  fusion  between  both  political  sections 
of  the  people,  established  separate  shrines  with  semi- 
idolatrous  worship,  to  supersede  the  central  sanctuary 
in  Jerusalem.  Later  on,  forced  by  the  threatening  power 
of  the  empire  of  Damascus,  the  Israelites  re-established 
friendly  relations  with  their  kinsmen  of  Judah.  The 
northern  kingdom,  however,  had  too  little  stability  to 
maintain  its  independence.  In  spite  of  repeated  gallant 
attempts,  and  even  some  signal  successes,  against  the  en- 
croachments and  attacks  of  Damascus,  the  kingdom  of 
Israel  fell  a  prey  to  the  mighty  conquering  power  of 
Assyria.  Under  the  reign  of  the  Israelite  king  Pekah, 
the  Assyrian  emperor  Tiglath-pileser  III  carried  away  a 
large  number  of  Israelites  captive.  His  successor,  Shal- 
maneser  IV,  again  invaded  the  country,  took  Hoshea, 
the  last  king  of  Israel,  prisoner,  and,  in  721  B.C.,  after  a 
siege  of  three  3'ears,  the  Assyrians,  under  Sargon,  cap- 
tured Samaria,  the  capital,  and,  by  earning  the  people 
away  into  exile,  put  an  end  to  the  kingdom  of  Israel. 


THE  ANCIENT  ISRAELITES  9 

The  captives  practically  disappeared  amidst  their  for- 
eign surroundings,  and,  as  a  separate  entity,  Jewish  his- 
tory knows  them  no  more. 

§  II.  The  Kingdom  of  Judah. — Different  in  very 
important  respects  from  the  inglorious  end  of  the  north- 
ern kingdom  was  the  fate  of  the  sister  state  of  Judah, 
or  Judea.  Though  it  also  could  not  escape  the  cata- 
clysms which  were  brought  about  by  the  rise  and  fall  of 
the  neighbouring  empires,  it  survived  all  of  them.  The 
reasons  for  this  resistance  are  first  of  all  to  be  found 
in  the  allegiance  which  the  people  continued  to  pay  to 
the  royal  house  of  David,  and  in  the  religious  cohesion 
effected  by  the  renowned  national  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem. 
While  the  kingdom  of  Judah  was  at  the  beginning  more 
or  less  protected  from  northern  invasion  by  the  interven- 
ing kingdom  of  Israel,  it  was  Egypt  which  proved  a 
dangerous  neighbour.  Under  the  reign  of  Rehoboam, 
the  first  of  the  kings  of  Judah,  Shishak,  of  Egypt,  swept 
over  the  land,  and  carried  away  from  Jerusalem  the 
gold  and  other  treasures  of  the  Temple  and  royal  palace. 
Indeed,  the  apparently  inexhaustible  wealth  of  the  Tem- 
ple and  the  precious  metals  used  in  its  construction  and 
appointments,  proved  attractive  objects  for  the  cupidity 
of  foreign  invaders.  The  kings  of  Damascus,  Israel  and 
Assyria,  who  raided  the  land  of  Judah,  plundered  those 
treasures  themselves  or  were  bought  off  with  them.  Of 
far  more  serious  consequences,  however,  proved  the  con- 
flicts betw-een  the  rival  powers  of  Egj'pt  and  Babylonia, 
between  which  Judah  served  as  a  buffer-state,  so  that 
it  w'as  placed  in  the  inextricable  difficulty  of  having 
repeatedly  to  take  sides  with  one  power  against  the 
other. 

The  trouble  broke  out  when  Necho  II,  of  Eg}^pt, 
marched  northward  to  come  to  grips  with  the  Baby- 
lonians, and  king  Josiah,  of  Judah,  considered  it  neces- 
sary to  oppose  the  passage  of  the  Egyptian  army  through 
his  territory.     At  the  battle  of  IVIegiddo,  the  well-mean- 


10  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

ing  Josiah  was  defeated  with  great  slaughter  and  lost 
his  life  (608).  Confusion  and  disaster  followed  on  this 
event.  Necho  interfered  with  the  election  to  the  throne, 
on  which  he  placed  his  own  nominee,  Jehoiakim,  Josiah's 
eldest  son,  and  put  the  country  under  tribute  to  Egypt. 
Judah,  however,  soon  passed  under  the  ruthless  yoke  of 
the  Babylonian  Nebuchadnezzar.  Jehoiachin,  the  son 
and  successor  of  Jehoiakim,  together  with  many  of  the 
aristocracy,  was  carried  away  captive  to  Babylon,  and  his 
brother  Zedekiah,  the  youngest  son  of  Josiah,  the  twen- 
tieth and  last  king  of  Judah,  was  placed  on  the  throne. 
Instigated  by  Egypt,  Zedekiah  rebelled  against  Babylonia; 
Nebuchadnezzar  invested  Jerusalem,  and,  after  a  siege 
of  a  year  and  a  half,  stormed  the  city  and  razed  it  to 
the  ground  (9  Ab,  586  B.C.).  The  king  Zedekiah  was 
blinded  and  taken  in  chains  to  Babylon,  where  he  died 
in  a  dungeon;  the  most  important  and  useful  parts  of 
the  population  were  carried  away  into  exile  to  that  coun- 
try, and  the  once  fair  and  flourishing  kingdom  of  Judah 
became  a  howling  wilderness.  In  language  of  moving 
pathos  and  power  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah  depict 
the  heartrending  ruin  which  had  overwhelmed  the  Judean 
nation. 

§12.  The  Prophets. — Amidst  the  disruptive  influ- 
ences of  events  which  brought  about  the  downfall  of  the 
kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Judah,  amidst  all  the  gloom  and 
terror  which  preceded  and  followed  those  great  and 
crushing  disasters,  there  stood  out  a  class  of  men  known 
as  Prophets  (Nebiim).  At  first  regarded  as  mere  vision- 
aries, who,  in  their  ecstatic  trances,  could  foretell  the 
future,  the  prophets  became  the  mouthpieces  of  the  God 
of  Israel  in  their  zeal  for  Him  and  their  warning  ad- 
monitions against  the  moral  transgressions  of  His  people. 
Instead  of  saying  smooth  things  to  flatter  the  national 
vanity,  the  prophets  denounced  their  own  countrymen 
with  pitiless  severity,  and  threatened  them  with  the  doom 
of  Heaven  for  their  sins.     In  times  of  distress  and  calan>- 


THE  ANCIENT  ISRAELITES  ii 

ity,  the  prophets,  however,  generally  guided  the  people, 
and,  in  language  of  poetic  tenderness,  inspired  it  with 
trust  in  God  and  confidence  in  His  ultimate  merciful 
dealings  with  those,  who,  in  spite  of  all,  were  to  remain 
true  to  the  Covenant  which  He  had  made  with  their 
fathers. 

The  prophets  whose  utterances  and  writings  have  been 
perserved  to  us  show  an  extraordinary  variety  of  types 
of  the  highest  moral  grandeur.  We  have  Samuel,  who 
had  unselfishly  led  the  people  during  a  long  and  eventful 
life;  Elijah,  the  fierce  champion  of  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel,  who  could  only  recognize  Him  in  the  "still,  small 
voice";  Nathan,  who  crushed  to  the  dust  the  guilty 
warrior-king  David,  by  the  words,  "Thou  art  the  man !" ; 
Amos,  the  herdman  of  Teicoa,  whose  only  partiality  for 
his  own  people  was  his  threat  that  their  greater  moral 
consciousness  would  bring  a  severer  punishment  for  their 
sins;  Micah,  with  his  appeal,  "What  doth  the  Lord  re- 
quire of  thee  but  to  do  justly,  love  mercy,  and  to  walk 
humbly  with  thy  God?";  Isaiah,  the  far-seeing  statesman, 
with  his  burning  anger  against  the  prevailing  luxury  and 
licentiousness  and  his  consuming  zeal  for  righteousness; 
Jeremiah,  the  noble-minded  patriot,  who  warned  and 
threatened,  and  then  bewailed  and  shared,  the  sad  fate 
of  his  stricken  people;  Ezekiel,  a  captive  in  a  strange  land, 
proclaiming  the  dignity  and  responsibility  of  every  human 
soul  and  the  moral  government  of  the  world ;  the  illus- 
trious seer  of  the  Restoration,  the  so-called  second  Isaiah, 
who  announced  the  ultimate  realization  of  the  universal 
hopes  of  Israel.  It  is  difficult  to  know  what  to  admire 
most  in  these  teachers  and  tribunes  of  humanity — w^hether 
their  truly  matchless  eloquence,  which  would  have  been 
enough  to  invest  their  utterances  w'ith  immortal  fame; 
their  unsurpassed  conception  of  ethical  Monotheism, 
which  has  become  the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  religion 
of  Israel  throughout  the  ages;  their  lofty  ideal  of  the 
mission  of  their  people  in  history;  their  passion  for  social 


12  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

righteousness,  or  their  dauntless  courage  in  enforcing  it. 
Certain  it  is,  that  they  have  indeHbly  stamped  their  glory 
on  the  people  of  Israel,  and  have  decisively  shaped  the 
spiritual  and  moral  evolution  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Second  Temple 

§   I.     The  Babylonian  Captivity. 

By  the  rivers  of  Babylon, 

There  we  sat  down,  yea,  we  wept, 

When  we  remembered  Zion. 

Upon  the  willows  in  the  midst  thereof 

We  hanged  up  our  harps. 

For  there  they  that  led  us  captive  required  of  us  words  of 

song. 
And  our  tormentors  required  of  us  mirth,  saying. 
Sing  us  one  of  the  songs  of  Zion. 

How  shall  we  sing  the  Lord's  song  in  a  strange  land? 
If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem, 
Let  my  right  hand  forget  her  cunning. 
Let  my  tongue  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth, 
If  I  remember  thee  not; 

If  I  prefer  not  Jerusalem  above  my  chief  joy. 
Remember,  O  Lord,  against  the  children  of  Edom 
The  day  of  Jerusalem; 
Who  said,  Rase  it,  rase  it. 
Even  to  the  foundation  thereof. 
O  daughter  of  Babylon,  that  art  to  be  destroyed; 
Happy  shall  he  be,  that  rewarded  thee 
As  thou  hast  served  us. 

Happy  shall  he  be,  that  taketh  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones 
Against  the  rock. 

Such  were  the  sentiments  of  keen  pain  and  wild  ven- 
geance which  animated  the  Judeans,  or  Jews,  who  were 
in  exile  far  away  from  their  own  native  country.  The 
feelings  of  pain  and  of  vengeance  became,  however,  sub- 
dued by  the  healing  process  of  time,  and  were  gradually 
replaced  by  an  entirely  diflFerent  outlook  on  the  course 

>3 


14  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

of  events.  If  the  hallowed  Temple,  where  God  had 
dwelt  in  His  glory,  was  destroyed;  if  Jerusalem,  the 
pride  of  the  nation,  was  in  ruins;  if  the  whole  land  was 
lying  waste — yet  the  God  of  Israel,  to  whom  the  Temple 
had  been  dedicated,  still  lived,  and  His  people,  to  whom 
the  land  of  Canaan  belonged  by  ancient  promise,  still  had 
its  being. 

"Seek  ye  the  peace  of  the  city  whither  I  have  caused 
you  to  be  carried  away  captive,  and  pray  unto  the  Lord 
for  it,"  was  the  remarkable  advice  which  the  prophet 
Jeremiah  addressed  to  his  distressed  compatriots,  and  they 
followed  his  counsel.  In  a  short  space  of  time  the  Jews 
of  Babylonia  grew  into  a  flourishing  community;  some  of 
its  members,  like  Daniel,  even  rose  to  high  rank  at  the 
imperial  court,  while  king  Jehoiachin,  the  last  but  one 
of  the  kings  of  Judah,  had  a  seat  of  honour  at  the  royal 
table  of  Evil  Merodach,  the  son  of  Nebuchadnezzar. 
But  of  infinitely  greater  importance  than  their  material 
prosperity  was  the  development  which  their  spiritual  out- 
look assumed.  From  a  cult  national  in  scope,  the  religion 
of  Israel  became  universal  in  effect.  Deprived  of  the 
centralizing  Temple  with  its  animal  sacrifices,  the  exiles 
in  the  various  places  of  their  dispersion  established  houses 
of  prayer  where  God  was  indeed  worshipped  in  spirit 
and  in  truth,  and  here  the  reading  and  exposition  of  the 
Torah  of  Moses  gradually  became  a  fixed  institution. 
The  idolatrous  tendencies  which  prophets  and  priests  had 
been  unable  to  eradicate,  vanished  with  the  catastrophe 
that  shook  Israel  to  its  foundations,  so  that,  amidst  all 
vicissitudes,  the  Jews  remained  the  faithful  bodyguard 
of  that  pure  and  ethical  Monotheism  which  was  so  loftily 
proclaimed  by  one  of  the  Jewish  master-minds  of  that 
period:  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  The  heaven  is  my  throne, 
and  the  earth  is  my  footstool :  what  manner  of  house 
will  ye  build  unto  me,  and  what  place  shall  be  my  rest? 
For  all  these  things  hath  mine  hand  made,  and  so  all 
these  things  came  to  be,  saith  the  Lord ;  but  to  this  nian 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  15 

will  I  look,  even  to  him  tliat  is  poor  and  of  a  contrite 
spirit,  and  that  treniblcth  at  my  word." 
§  2.     The  Restoration. 

When  the  Lord  turned  again  the  captivity  of  Zion, 

We  were  like  unto  them  that  dream. 

Then  was  our  mouth  filled  with  laughter, 

And  our  tongue  with  singing: 

Then  said  they  among  the  nations. 

The  Lord  hath  done  great  things  for  them. 

The  Lord  hath  done  great  things  for  us; 

Therefore  we  are  glad. 

Turn  again  our  captivity,  O  Lord, 

As  the  streams  in  the  South. 

They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy. 

Though  he  goeth  on  his  way   weeping,   bearing  forth  the 

seed. 
He  shall  come  again  with  joy,  bringing  his  sheaves  with 

him. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  destruction  of  the  Jewish 
commonwealth  that  there  occurred  an  event  which  con- 
vulsed the  great  Babylonian  empire,  and  brought  it  to  a 
dramatic  fall.  The  new  star  which  had  risen  in  the 
person  of  Cyrus,  the  ruler  of  conquering  Persia,  also 
changed  the  fortunes  of  the  Jewish  people  In  the  year 
539,  wMthin  half-a-century  of  the  captivity,  Cyrus  issued 
an  edict  permitting  the  return  of  the  exiled  Jews  to  their 
native  land  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  in  Jeru- 
salem. It  was  a  decree  of  incalculably  far-reaching  con- 
sequences, worthy  to  inspire  that  wonderful  psalm  which 
sang  of  the  resurrection  of  a  people.  Yet,  in  spite  of 
the  intense  enthusiasm  and  high  hopes  it  evoked,  the 
response  was  very  meagre  on  the  part  of  the  bulk  of  the 
people,  who  had  evidently  found  a  permanent  home  in 
Babylonia.  Only  a  com^iaratively  small  number  of  Jews, 
led  by  Sheshbazzar,  a  prince  of  the  house  of  David,  re- 
turned to  Jerusalem.  They  proceeded  to  rebuild  the 
Temple,  but  the  opposition  they  encountered  from  vari- 
ous quarters  forced  them  to  discontinue  the  work.     It 


i6  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

was  only  under  Darius  Hystaspes  that  Zerubbabel,  also 
a  member  of  the  royal  line  of  David,  who  had  returned 
with  another  group  of  colonists,  was  able,  together  with 
the  High  Priest  Joshua,  supported  by  the  prophets 
Haggai  and  Zechariah,  to  complete  the  interrupted  work 
of  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  (516).  Great  indeed 
was  the  jubilation  of  those  who  were  privileged  to  wit- 
ness the  re-establishment  of  the  sacred  edifice,  but  the 
old  men  who  had  seen  the  former  Temple  "wept  with  a 
loud  voice." 

§  3.  The  Samaritans. — The  opposition  to  the  recon- 
struction of  the  Temple  and  capital  of  the  former  Jewish 
state  had  come  from  a  strange  quarter.  The  Samaritans, 
a  mixture  of  foreign  colonists  introduced  by  the  Assyrian 
Shalmaneser  on  the  destruction  of  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
and  of  the  dregs  of  the  original  population  that  were 
then  left  behind,  had  adopted  the  religion  of  the  land, 
and  on  hearing  of  the  proposed  rebuilding  of  the  Temple, 
they  offered  to  participate  in  the  establishment  of  the 
new  sanctuary.  The  small  band  of  Jews  who  had  come 
back  to  their  country  with  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of 
patriots  and  reformers  were,  however,  determined  not 
to  share  the  glory,  nor  to  expose  themselves  to  the  dan- 
gers which  a  religious  amalgamation  with  the  semi-idol- 
atrous Samaritans  would  have  entailed.  The  refusal  by 
the  Jews  of  the  Samaritan  oflEer  led  to  an  intense  hatred 
between  the  two  nations.  The  Samaritans,  adhering  to 
a  peculiar  text  of  the  Torah  of  Moses,  built  a  rival 
Temple  on  Mount  Gerizim,  which  was  eventually  de- 
stroyed with  the  city  of  Samaria  by  the  Jewish  High 
Priest,  John  Hyrcanus,  in  the  year  109  B.C.  During  the 
course  of  Jewish  history  we  meet  the  Samaritans  as  now 
and  again  they  rise  into  meteoric  prominence.  They 
joined  the  Jews  in  their  last  struggle  for  independence, 
and,  after  a  formidable  insurrection  under  the  emperor 
Justinian  (530  C.E.),  they  were  reduced  to  insignificance. 
Surviving  many  vicissitudes,  the  Samaritans  have  dwin- 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  17 

died  to  an  interesting  remnant  of  about  150  souls,  who 
still  inhabit  the  ancient  centre  of  their  history. 

§  4.  Ezra  and  Nehemiah. — The  rebuilding  of  the 
Temple  in  Jerusalem  would  have  availed  little  to  the 
future  of  the  new  Judean  settlement,  and  still  less  to 
the  future  of  Judaism,  the  religious  polity  of  the  Jews, 
if  there  had  not  appeared  Ezra  the  Scribe,  who,  with  the 
moral  earnestness  and  zeal  of  a  religious  reformer,  gave 
an  entirely  new  tendency  to  Jewish  history.  The  Jews 
became  first  and  foremost  a  religious  community,  in  w'hich 
the  study  of  the  Sacred  Writings  and  the  observance  of 
their  institutions  were  to  be  the  great  purpose  of  Jewish 
life.  This  regenerator  of  Judaism,  of  whom  it  was 
afterw'ards  said  that  he  restored  the  Torah  which  had 
been  forgotten,  came  from  Babylonia  with  a  body  of 
colonists,  bringing  with  him  a  decree  of  king  Artaxerxes 
Longimanus  which  gave  full  authority  for  the  carrying 
out  of  the  object  they  had  in  view.  One  of  his  first 
acts  for  the  purification  and  preservation  of  the  commun- 
ity was  to  take  energetic  steps  to  put  a  stop  to  the  widely 
prevailing  marriages  with  foreign  women,  and  even  to 
insist  on  their  dismissal  in  the  case  of  those  who  had 
contracted  such  mixed  unions.  Of  epoch-making  im- 
portance was  his  introduction  of  the  Torah  of  Mosca  as 
the  basis  of  Jewish  life  and  thought — a  measure  which 
more  than  anything  else  ensured  the  continuance  and 
vitality  of  Judaism. 

In  his  strenuous  work  of  reform,  Ezra  was  effectively 
associated  with,  and  supported  by,  Nehemiah,  a  cupbearer 
to  Artaxerxes.  He  came  to  Jerusalem  in  the  capacity  of 
governor,  and  armed  with  powers  to  rebuild  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem.  This  most  necessary  and  important  work 
was  carried  out  by  him  with  great  energy,  especially  as 
the  workmen  had  to  go  about  armed  in  fear  of  being 
attacked  by  Samaritan  and  other  enemies.  This  Jewish 
patriot,  however,  not  only  interested  himself  in  the 
strengthening  and  good  government  of  the  city,  but  also 


l8  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

took  a  leading  part  in  the  religious  revival  of  the  com- 
munity. After  a  stay  of  twelve  years,  he  returned  to 
Babylonia,  but  subsequently  paid  another  visit  to  Jeru- 
salem in  order  to  amplify  and  enforce  the  reforms  and 
enactments  introduced  by  Ezra  and  himself. 

§  5.  4  Silent  Evolution. — For  the  next  two  cen- 
turies few  incidents  of  stirring  historic  importance  have 
been  preserved  to  us,  and  yet  it  was  a  period  of  immense 
consequence  to  the  future  of  Judaism  and  religion  gen- 
erally. During  this  period,  a  silent  evolution,  unheeded 
by  the  people  concerned  and  entirely  unknown  to  the 
outside  world,  went  on  in  the  growing  Judean  com- 
munit)\  This  people,  practically  undisturbed  by  the  con- 
tests for  world-power  which  were  then  raging,  or  re- 
garded as  of  no  account  by  the  mighty  conquerors  and 
armies  who  swept  past  and  over  it,  was  yet  undergoing  a 
process  of  fermentation  which  was  ultimately  to  effect  a 
revolution  in  the  whole  all-embracing  domain  of  religion 
and  morals.  The  writings  contained  in  the  Hebrew 
Bible,  undoubtedly  the  most  remarkable  and  influential 
collection  of  literature  ever  penned  by  the  hand  of  man, 
were  then  sifted  and  settled  by  the  Jewish  scribes  and 
religious  authorities  with  a  conscientiousness  which  should 
have  earned  for  them  the  gratitude  of  posterity.  The 
reforms  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  bore  abundant  fruit  in 
the  orderly  development  of  Jewish  religious  tradition  and 
life.  The  Great  Synod,  a  body  of  somewhat  uncertain 
composition  and  duration,  applied  itself  to  the  solution 
of  the  new  spiritual  problems  which  arose  with  the  ever- 
changing  needs  of  the  Jewish  people.  But  in  economic 
and  political  directions  also  the  Jews  made  vast  progress 
under  the  sheltering  care  of  comparative  peace  and  ob- 
scurity. The  great  struggles  with  Greek  civilization  and 
Roman  militarism  which  lay  before  the  Jewish  people 
proved  repeatedly  the  inexhaustible  spiritual  strength  and 
the  high  qualities  of  patriotic  courage  and  devotion  which 
animated  and  sustained  it. 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  19 

§  6.  The  Conflict  with  Hellenism. — The  seclusion 
of  Judaism  was  broken  by  the  appearance  at  Jerusalem 
of  Alexander  the  Great  (332),  whose  conquests  were 
not  only  to  inaugurate  a  new  chapter  in  Universal  His- 
tory, but  also  to  bring  Judaism  on  the  world-stage,  and 
to  throw  it  into  a  deadly  conflict  with  Hellenic  thought 
and  civilization.  It  was  truly  a  dramatic  moment  when 
the  High  Priest  Jaddua  met  Alexander  to  offer  him  the 
submission  of  the  Jewish  people.  The  Greeks  had  no 
conception  of  the  forces  which  were  hidden  in  the  mind 
and  life  of  this  apparently  strange  and  insignificant  nation 
of  barbarians,  but,  with  an  instinctive  insight,  Alexander 
took  kindly  to  them.  After  his  death  Palestine  passed 
under  the  rule  of  the  Egyptian  Ptolemies,  who  proved 
well  disposed  towards  the  Jews.  They  accorded  them 
many  marks  of  favour,  and  several  Jews  even  rose  to 
the  command  of  the  Egyptian  army.  The  Jews  of  Alex- 
andria, which  probably  had  Jewish  settlers  from  its  foun- 
dation, began  to  play  a  very  important  part  in  this  great 
commercial  emporium  and  centre  of  Hellenic  philosophy. 
The  Alexandrian  Jews,  who  possessed  the  full  rights  of 
citizenship  and  were  placed  under  the  authority  of  their 
own  head,  with  the  title  of  ethnarch,  prospered  materially 
and  intellectually,  and  were  to  exercise  a  far-reaching 
influence  on  the  development  of  Judaism.  Unfor- 
tunately, the  Jews  in  Palestine  became  an  object  of  con- 
tention between  the  rival  dynasties  of  the  Ptolemies  of 
Egypt  and  the  Seleucida?  of  Syria.  This  contest  between 
the  two  powers  was  entered  upon  by  the  Seleucid  Anti- 
ochus  HI,  the  Great,  when  Palestine  fell  into  the  hands 
of  Syria  (203). 

The  Hellenizing  process,  which  had  made  rapid  prog- 
ress among  the  Egj'ptian  Jews,  reached  their  co-religion- 
ists in  Judea,  and  particularly  among  the  upper  classes  it 
became  a  general  tendency  to  adopt  Grecian  names  and 
manners  and  to  affect  a  corresponding  disregard  of  Jew- 
ish custom  and   sentiment — an   attitude  which  many  of 


20  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

the  necessarily  separatist  Jewish  people  have  at  all  times 
of  intellectual  expansion  been  prone  to  adopt.  Such  a 
course  was,  however,  bound  to  lead  to  an  enfeeblement 
of  the  Jewish  power  of  resistance  against  the  pressing 
attractions  of  Grecian  life,  and  to  a  gradual  dissolu- 
tion of  the  religious  and  moral  bonds  of  Judaism.  It 
was  under  Antiochus  IV,  surnamed  Epiphanes  (the  Illus- 
trious), and  nicknamed  Epimanes  (the  Madman),  that 
the  struggle  between  the  Hellenic  and  Hebraic  influences 
on  the  Judean  people  came  to  a  head. 

§  7.  The  Maccabean  Revolt. — The  Jewish  settle- 
ment in  Judea  had  gradually  acquired  the  privileges  of 
self-government,  and  both  the  Seleucidae  and  the  Ptole- 
mies not  only  left  the  Jews  to  manage  their  internal  af- 
fairs, but  also  recognized  the  High  Priest  as  their  natural 
ruler.  The  hereditary  office  of  High  Priest,  which  had 
descended  from  father  to  son,  now  became  a  matter  of 
dispute  and  of  venal  competition,  to  decide  which  the 
intervention  of  Antiochus  Epiphanes  was  called  in. 
Antiochus,  whose  greed  had  been  whetted  by  the  tempting 
offers  of  the  rival  candidates,  entered  Jerusalem  and  plun- 
dered the  treasures  of  the  Temple.  The  resentment 
which  this  sacrilege  aroused  among  all  sections  of  the 
Jews  led  to  an  outburst  of  savage  fury  on  the  part  of 
Antiochus  against  them.  He  sent  an  armed  force  to 
Judea  with  orders  to  spare  nobody  nor  anything  there. 
The  Syrians  behaved  as  in  a  rebellious  country,  and  the 
people  were  plundered  and  butchered  without  mercy. 
Not  satisfied  with  this,  Antiochus  issued  an  edict  for- 
bidding the  practice  of  Judaism  under  the  penalty  of 
death,  and,  as  a  finishing  touch,  the  Jews  were  compelled 
to  worship  the  idols  which  were  specially  erected,  one  of 
them  even  at  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem. 

These  latter  measures  directed  against  the  Jews  came 
as  a  new  experience  to  them.  Amidst  all  their  manifold 
misfortunes,  they  had  never  yet  been  subjected  to  reli- 
gious persecution,  and  Antiochus  Epiphanes  was  the  first 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  21 

in  the  long  line  of  the  persecutors  of  the  Jews  for  con- 
science' sake.  The  inroads  which  the  Syro-Hellenic 
manners  had  made  among;  the  upper  classes,  even  among 
the  priests,  in  Judea,  found  Judaism  ill  prepared  to  with- 
stand this  unexpected  and  fierce  onslaught.  In  spite  of 
the  passive  resistance  which  the  Syrian  officers  and  execu- 
tioners encountered,  and  the  martyrdom  of  many  faithful 
Jews,  the  struggle  was  an  unequal  one,  and  was  likely 
to  end  in  the  dissolution  of  Judaism  in  its  native  home. 

A  sudden  blow  struck  against  the  tyranny  by  an  aged 
priest,  was  to  change  the  whole  course  of  events.  Mat- 
tathias  the  Hasmoncan,  in  the  town  of  Modin,  near 
Jerusalem,  raised  the  flag  of  revolt,  and  roused  his  coun- 
trymen from  their  sense  of  paralyzed  helplessness  (167). 
The  five  sons  of  Mattathias,  surnamed  the  Maccabees, 
led  the  revolt  which  was  to  win  the  independence  of 
the  Jewish  people. 

§  8.  The  Hasmonean  Dynasty. — After  the  death 
of  Mattathias  (166),  his  son  Judas  became  the  leader  of 
the  Jewish  insurrection.  Judas  Maccabeus  was  a  true 
hero — very  probably  a  magnetic  personality,  beyond  doubt 
a  devoted  patriot  and  brilliant  leader.  His  valour  and 
resourcefulness  were  prodigious,  and  his  genuine  piety 
was  tempered  by  common-sense.  Judas  was  successful 
beyond  possible  expectation.  He  defeated  the  disciplined 
Syrian  army  with  his  small  band  of  untrained  warriors ; 
he  entered  Jerusalem  and  re-dedicated  the  Temple  to 
the  service  of  the  God  of  Israel.  The  feast  of  Hanucah 
still  commemorates  this  signal  event  in  Jewish  history. 
The  struggle  with  the  Syrian  power  nevertheless  still 
continued,  and  Judas  died  fighting  bravely  agai«st  over- 
whelming odds  (160).  In  order  to  ensure  the  advan- 
tages gained  by  the  Jews,  Judas  had  entered  into  a  treaty 
of  alliance  with  Rome — the  growing  power  with  which 
the  Jews  were  later  on  to  enter  into  a  life-and-death 
struggle.  Judas'  brother,  Jonathan  (i  61-143),  carried 
on  the  fight  with   ability,   though  with  varying  success, 


22  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

and  he  was  succeeded  by  Simon,  the  last  surviving  son 
of  Mattathias.  It  was  Simon  who  finally  obtained  from 
Syria  a  recognition  of  the  political  independence  of  Judea, 
and  he  was  solemnly  invested  by  the  people  with  the 
hereditary  dignity  of  High  Priest  as  well  as  of  the  civil 
and  military  leadership  of  the  Jews. 

John  Hyrcanus  I,  son  of  Simon  (135-106),  was  a  suc- 
cessful ruler,  who  enlarged  the  frontiers  of  Judea  and 
raised  it  to  a  high  degree  of  prosperity.  He  waged  suc- 
cessful wars  with  the  Samaritans,  whose  temple  on 
Mount  Gerizim  he  destroyed,  and  with  the  Edomites, 
whom  he  forcibly  compelled  to  adopt  the  Jewish  religion. 
Towards  the  end  of  his  reign,  however,  he  became  en- 
tangled with  the  religious  parties  of  the  Pharisees  and 
Sadducees,  who  then  entered  into  that  turbulent  political 
rivalry  which  was  to  bring  such  sore  tribulation  on  their 
common  nation.  John  Hyrcanus,  after  a  reign  of  thirty 
years,  was  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son  Aristobulus,  whose 
brief  reign  of  about  a  year  was  marked  by  the  murder  of 
his  mother  and  favourite  brother  Antigonus.  Alexander 
Jannaeus,  another  son  of  John  Hyrcanus,  was  a  strong 
ruler  who  engaged  in  a  number  of  foreign  enterprises, 
and  extended  the  boundaries  of  Judea.  Under  Alex- 
ander's wife,  Alexandra  Salome,  the  only  post-exilic  Jew- 
ish queen  regnant,  who  succeeded  him,  the  people  enjoyed 
nine  years  of  peace,  but  the  fight  for  the  crown  which 
broke  out  after  her  death  between  her  son  Hyrcanus  II, 
the  High  Priest,  and  Aristobulus  II,  brought  ruin  to  the 
country,  and  led  to  the  ultimate  extinction  of  the  Has- 
monean  dynasty  and  house. 

§  9.  The  Herodian  Dynasty. — The  fall  of  the 
Hasmoneans  was  brought  about  by  the  calamitous  inter- 
vention of  Rome,  and  accelerated  by  the  rise  of  a  family 
of  foreign  descent  which  was  to  rule  the  Jews  in  the  last 
days  of  their  independence.  In  a  fatal  moment,  both 
the  contending  brothers,  Hyrcanus  II  and  Aristobulus  II, 
decided   to  invoke  the  assistance  of  all-powerful  Rome. 


THE   SECOND   TEMPLE  23 

Their  representatives  appeared  before  Pompey  in  Damas- 
cus, and  pleaded  the  respective  merits  of  the  aspirants  for 
the  throne,  while  the  long-suffering  people,  too,  had 
taken  care  to  send  a  deputation  to  Pompey,  asking  him 
to  relieve  them  of  both  unwelcome  rulers.  As  the 
result,  Pompey  marched  on  Jerusalem,  and  took  the  de- 
fended and  fortified  Temple  by  storm.  On  entering  the 
Holy  of  Holies,  where  the  High  Priest  only  appeared 
once  a  year  (on  the  Day  of  Atonement),  Pompey  was 
struck  with  wonder  and  awe  at  the  entire  absence  of 
any  visible  representation  of  the  Deity  in  that  mysterious 
sanctuary.  Strangely  enough,  he  left  the  vast  treasures 
of  the  Temple  untouched,  and  re-instated  Hyrcanus  in 
the  dignity  of  High  Priest  and  ruler  of  Judea. 

Hyrcanus,  who  was  to  be  burdened  with  the  priest- 
hood for  a  long  and  stormy  period  of  forty  years  (79-40), 
was  a  weak  and  easy-going  man,  altogether  unfitted  for 
the  exposed  parts  he  was  called  upon  to  play.  Through- 
out he  was  instigated  and  supported  by  a  crafty,  self- 
seeking  Edomite,  Antipatcr,  who  held  the  reins  of  gov- 
ernment while  his  nominal  master  was  made  to  serve 
his  deeply-laid  schemes.  These  efforts  culminated  by 
Hyrcanus  being  put  out  of  the  way,  and  in  the  ultimate 
election  by  the  Roman  Senate  of  Antipater's  son,  Herod, 
as  king  of  Judea. 

The  reign  of  Herod,  called  the  Great  (40-4  B.C.),  con- 
stitutes a  long  series  of  murders  and  outrages.  He 
killed  the  members  of  the  Sanhedrin,  the  chief  religious 
and  judicial  tribunal  of  the  Jews,  as  well  as  several  of 
his  ten  wives,  among  them  the  beautiful  ]\Iariamne  the 
Hasmonean,  and  a  number  of  his  own  children.  As 
Augustus  once  put  it,  it  was  better  to  be  such  a  man's 
swine  than  his  son.  Swayed  by  unscrupulous  ambition 
and  fierce  jealousy,  he  shrank  from  no  crime  which  would 
further  his  aim  or  satisfy  his  suspicion.  In  order  to 
ingratiate  himself  with  his  Roman  masters,  he  built  a 
number  of  Grecian  cities  in  honour  of  the  emperors,  and 


24  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

introduced  un-Jewish  customs,  such  as  Greek  games  and 
combats  with  wild  beasts,  into  Judea.  To  flatter  his 
vanity,  he  rebuilt  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem  on  a  magnifi- 
cent scale,  and  otherwise  comported  himself  with  regal 
pomp.  As  he  had  lived,  so  he  died.  During  his  last 
days  he  planned  to  throw  the  whole  nation  into  mourn- 
ing on  his  death  by  slaying  their  most  prorr.inent  repre- 
sentatives. 

Herod  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  Archelaus,  but,  as  the 
result  of  an  appeal  to  Rome,  Augustus  divided  Herod's 
kingdom  and  apportioned  Judea  proper,  Idumea  and 
Samaria  to  Archelaus,  who  only  received  the  title  of 
ethnarch.  While  the  Herodian  family  was  contending 
for  the  sovereignty,  the  Jewish  people  experienced  a 
time  of  great  tribulation.  The  country  was  in  a  state 
of  anarchy,  subjected  to  massacre  and  pillage  by  Jewish 
friend  and  Roman  foe.  While  the  so-called  Zealots  were 
patriots  who  considered  fair  all  means  that  went  to  rid 
the  country  of  the  hateful  foreigner,  they  became  mixed 
up  with  doubtful  and  dangerous  elements,  like  the  Sicarii 
(daggermen),  who  used  patriotism  as  a  cloak  for  all 
manner  of  crime  and  outrage.  Archelaus'  reign  of  nine 
5"ears  was  full  of  misery.  He  was  ultimately  summoned 
to  Rome  and  banished  to  Gaul,  and,  with  his  departure, 
Judea  sank  into  a  Roman  province,  administered  by  a 
procurator  resident  in  Caesarea,  and  subject  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  prefect  of  Syria. 

§  lo.  Pharisees,  Sadducees  and  Essenes. — The 
eventful  times  through  which  the  Jews  had  passed  since 
the  Maccabean  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  Antiochus 
Epiphanes,  and  the  stand  which  was  then  made  by  the 
bulk  of  the  people  against  the  subversive  influences  of 
Hellenism,  had  brought  about  a  division  of  the  Jews 
into  religious  parties,  which  were  likewise  coloured  and 
guided  by  political  sympathies  and  tendencies.  Matta- 
thias  the  Hasmonean  had  turned  to  those  who  were  "zeal- 
ous for  the  Law,"  and   these  faithful  adherents  of  the 


THE  SECOND   TEMPLE  25 

Mosaic  institutions,  distinguished  as  Assideans  (Chassi- 
dim,  Pietists,  Saints),  then  became  the  dominant  party 
in  the  Jewish  commonwealth.  The  ultimate  victory  of^ 
the  Maccabean  arms  still  brought,  however,  no  final 
reconciliation  between  the  various  sections  of  the  Jewish 
people.  Hence,  there  grew  up  two  opposing  parties — 
Pharisees  and  Sadducees — who  represented  differing  in- 
terpretations of  Judaism  which  long  survived  the  exist- 
ence of  those  sections. 

The  Pharisees  (those  who  "separated"  themselves)  suc- 
ceeded the  Assideans  in  the  conscientious  observance  of 
the  Torah  of  Moses  and  of  its  traditional  development 
among  the  people  of  Israel.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the 
religious  earnestness  and  patriotic  zeal  of  these  Jewish 
Puritans  should  have  been  largely  transmitted  to  us  by 
unfriendly  critics  and  rivals.  To  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians, the  religious-minded  Pharisees  were  the  immediate 
and  most  exasperating  opponents,  and  the  violence  of 
the  disputes  between  them  is  reflected  in  the  diatribes  and 
denunciations  against  the  Pharisees  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  it  is  hardly  fair  to  the  Pharisees  to  judge  them 
through  the  colouring  of  inherited  religious  prejudice. 
The  democratic  Pharisees  undoubtedly  rendered  lasting 
service  to  Judaism  by  curbing  the  priestly  and  aristocratic 
pretensions  of  the  Sadducees,  whose  frequently  pro- 
nounced Hellenistic  proclivities  constituted  a  veritable 
danger  to  the  religious  individuality  and  political  inde- 
pendence of  the  Jewish  nation.  The  Pharisees  made  the 
Sacred  Writings  the  common  property,  indeed  the  obliga- 
tory possession,  of  every  Jew,  by  raising  their  study  to  a 
duty  most  pleasing  to  God,  and  by  the  institution  of  cer- 
tain ceremonial  observances  transferred  the  centre  of 
gravity  of  the  religious  life  from  the  Temple,  with  its 
sacrifices  and  priesthood,  to  the  synagogue  and  the  home. 
A  body  which  thus  placed  the  knowledge  and  the  min- 
istrations of  religion  into  the  hands  of  the  people,  cannot 
have  been  that  self-seeking  and  obscurantist  sect  whicli 


26  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

traditional  ignorance  represents  the  Pharisees  to  have 
been.  As  it  was,  they  assisted  in  an  evolution  of  Juda- 
ism which  survived  without  any  spiritual  strain  or  shock 
the  destruction  of  the  Temple,  and  maintained  the  intel- 
lectual vitality  of  the  Jews  amidst  all  the  darkness  that 
subsequently  surrounded  them. 

Another  Jewish  sect,  the  Essenes,  grew  out  of  a  certain 
number  of  Pharisees,  more  strict  than  their  fellows,  or 
of  a  more  contemplative  turn  of  mind,  who,  tired  of  the 
political  troubles  that  agitated  their  people,  withdrew 
into  secluded  spots,  particularly  to  the  wilderness  border- 
ing on  the  Dead  Sea.  There  they  settled  in  com- 
munistic colonies,  whose  wants  were  few,  and  became 
famed  for  their  charitableness  and  austerity  of  morals. 
But  in  direct  opposition  to  the  basic  idea  of  Pharisaism, 
that  all  the  acts  of  life  should  be  hallowed  by  being 
placed  at  the  service  of  God,  the  Essene  recluses  became 
imbued  with  the  Oriental  theosophy  which  regarded  mat- 
ter and  spirit  as  irreconcilable  principles.  The  other- 
world  ideas  of  the  Essenes,  entirely  alien  to  Judaism, 
found  comparatively  few  adherents,  of  whom  John  the 
Baptist  is  the  best  known,  but  proved  later  on  of  great 
influence  in  the  rise  of  Christianity. 

§  II.  The  Rise  of  Rabbinical  Schools. — In  con- 
sidering the  various  sections  of  Judaism,  it  ought  to  be 
borne  in  mind  that  all  of  them  agreed  in  its  fundamental 
principles,  and  that  the  Temple  was  always  recognized 
as  the  House  of  God  of  all  Israel.  The  spirituality  and 
unity  of  God  were  axioms  above  and  beyond  discussion, 
and  the  inviolability  of  the  Torah  of  Moses  undisputed. 
At  that  time,  the  Jewish  religion  under  Palestinian  aus- 
pices had  not  yet  elaborated  a  speculative  philosophy,  and 
it  was  much  later  that  it  was  formulated  into  dogmatic 
principles.  The  Mosaic  institutions  and  ordinances  be- 
ing universally  accepted  as  the  rule  of  both  public  and 
private  life,  it  became  necessary  to  amplify  the  provisions 
which  the  Torah  had  made  for  the  governance  of  Israel. 


THE  SECOND   TEMPLE  27 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  rch*p;i'ous,  civil  and  crim- 
inal laws  and  regulations  set  out  in  the  Torah  of  Moses 
had  to  be  interpreted  in  their  practical  application,  and 
that  they  had  to  be  accommodated  to  changing  circum- 
stances ;  nor  can  it  be  denied  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
germ  of  many  enactments  foiuid  in  the  Torah  called  for 
development,  and  that,  on  the  other,  new  rules  had  to  be 
devised  to  meet  the  fresh  contingencies  arising  in  the  stress 
of  life.  It  is,  therefore,  in  the  natiire  of  things  that  those 
who  administered  the  Mosaic  Code  developed  a  chain  of 
tradition  which  included  precedents  and  principles  essen- 
tial to  all  well-ordered  legislation.  It  was  due  to  the  sense 
of  continuity  which  governed  this  development  of  the 
Torah,  and  to  the  vivid  consciousness  of  the  divine  sway 
over  Israel,  that  led  the  Jewish  doctors,  the  Rabbis,  to 
assume  authoritative  tradition  as  a  concurrent,  if  unwrit- 
ten, part  of  the  recorded  Law  of  Moses. 

The  scribes  and  members  of  the  Great  Synod,  who 
revised  and  fixed  the  canon  of  the  Jewish  Bible,  carried 
out  a  highly  delicate  and  important  function  of  tradition. 
The  scribes,  however,  not  only  attended  to  the  extremely 
careful  transcription  of  the  Scriptures,  but  translated  the 
Hebrew  original  into  the  Aramaic  vernacular  and  ex- 
plained it  to  the  people.  Out  of  this  grew  the  IVlidrash 
and  Hagadah,  the  homiletical  and  general  exposition  of 
Scripture,  and  the  Halachah,  the  legal  decisions  deduced 
from  Mosaic  and  other  enactments.  The  members  of 
the  Great  Synod,  which  existed  roughly  from  Ezra  the 
Scribe  till  the  invasion  of  Alexander  the  Great,  considered 
themselves  the  immediate  successors  of  the  last  of  the 
prophets,  Haggai,  Zechariah  and  Malachi,  and  the  oral 
traditions  accumulated  by  them  were  further  developed 
by  the  Elders,  and  then  b}'  the  Tannaim  (Teachers),  who 
flourished  from  10  to  220  c.E. 

Of  fundamental  importance  to  the  systematic  develop- 
ment of  tradition  were  Hillcl  and  Shammai,  and  the 
schools  called   after  their   names.     Jewish   learning  had 


28  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

already  been  flourishing  in  Palestine  before  their  appear- 
ance, since  Hillel  came  from  Babylonia  to  Jerusalem  for 
the  purpose  of  extending  his  studies.  He  found  in  She- 
maiah  and  Abtalion  (Sameas  and  Pollion)  teachers  of 
eminence,  and  ultimately  became  head  of  their  college. 
Hillel,  whose  public  activity  in  the  schools  and  the  San- 
hedrin  extended  from  about  30  B.C.  to  10  c.E.,  is  not  only 
one  of  the  most  illustrious,  but  also  one  of  the  most 
sympathique,  figures  of  Jewish  history — a  master  distin- 
guished by  nobility  of  character,  greatness  of  erudition 
and  breadth  of  \\^\w.  The  gentleness  and  humility  of  his 
disposition  and  his  love  of  peace  became  proverbial.  Of 
notable  interest  is  his  reply  to  a  scoffing  would-be  prose- 
lyte who  demanded  to  know  the  essence  of  Judaism, 
"What  thou  wouldest  not  that  thy  neighbour  should  do 
unto  thee,  do  not  unto  him:  this  is  the  whole  Law,  the 
rest  is  only  a  commentary."  It  was  in  this  broad  spirit 
that  Hillel  and  his  disciples  were  opposed  to  Shammai 
and  his  school,  which  was  distinguished  by  the  rigidity 
of  its  interpretations  and  views.  Hillel,  whose  authority 
as  a  teacher  was  added  to  his  high  dignity  of  President 
of  the  Sanhedrin,  was  the  ancestor  of  a  line  of  Jewish 
spiritual  leaders  who  held  sway  until  the  fifth  centurj^ 
His  most  eminent  disciple  was  Jochanan  ben  Zaccai,  a 
fine  type  of  that  admirable  race  of  Jewish  scholars  who, 
amidst  all  the  clash  of  arms  and  the  turmoil  of  warring 
factions,  silently  laboured  in  their  colleges  at  that  mighty 
fabric  of  Judaism  which  was  to  brave  and  withstand  the 
storms  and  ravages  of  future  ages. 

§  12.  Hellenistic  Judaism. — Concurrently  with  the 
growth  of  Judaism  in  Judea  and  its  fruitful  branch  in 
Babylonia,  another  development  of  Judaism  had  taken 
place  in  the  wide  Greek-speaking  world,  of  which  Alex- 
andria was  the  Jewish  centre.  The  Jews  living  amidst 
Greek  surroundings  became  imbued  with  Hellenic  influ- 
ences, which  showed  themselves  not  only  in  their  Greek 
speech  and  names,  but  also  in  the  intellectual  and  spir- 


THE   SECOND   TEMPLE  29 

itual  life.  Although  retaining  a  deep  attachment  to 
the  Jewish  motherland  and  an  affectionate  veneration  for 
the  great  Sanctuary  on  Mount  Zion,  the  Jews  of  Egypt 
set  up  as  a  rival  to  it  the  Temple  of  Onias  at  Leonto- 
polis,  which  was  the  only  other  Jewish  fane  in  the  world 
where  sacrifices  were  offered  up.  The  Hellenistic  Jews 
lost  the  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  language,  so  that 
the  Sacred  Writings  had  to  be  translated  into  the  Greek 
vernacular — a  rendering  which  has  come  down  to  us  as 
the  Septuagint,  the  Translation  of  the  Seventy.  This 
Greek  Bible  was  used  in  the  proseuche,  or  synagogues 
(both  Greek  words),  and  even  the  prayers  in  these  Jew- 
ish places  of  worship  were  offered  up  in  the  tongue  of 
Hellas.  In  addition  to  the  Septuagint  Bible — then  a 
production  of  extraordinary  kind  in  its  magnificence  and 
rarity,  which  was  to  exercise  a  far-reaching  influence  on 
the  religious  thought  of  mankind — there  grew  up  a  con- 
siderable Hellenistic  literature  which  was  intended  for 
the  instruction  and  edification  of  both  non-Jews  as  well 
as  Jews.  The  Jews,  thrown  into  the  midst  of  an  alien 
population  with  pretensions  to  fabulous  antiquity  and 
immense  cultural  achievements,  endeavoured  to  bring 
home  to  those  who  looked  down  on  them  the  real  great- 
ness of  the  Jewish  people  and  the  superiority  of  the  Jew- 
ish faith  over  the  polytheistic  religions  of  their  neighbours. 
The  foremost  representative  of  the  Hellenistic  Jews 
was  Philo  Juda?us,  of  Alexandria  (born  about  20  B.C.; 
died  after  41  C.E.),  a  man  of  profound  religious  feeling 
and  noble  character.  The  life  of  Philo  possesses  a  spe- 
cial interest  and  charm,  as  he  was  the  forerunner  of  a 
type  of  Jew  whom  we  must  regard  with  particular  sym- 
pathy. Of  high  social  standing  (his  brother  was  alab- 
arch,  or  chief,  of  the  Jews  of  Alexandria)  and  imbued 
with  the  best  foreign  culture  of  the  time,  he  was  never- 
theless warmly  attached  to  the  faith  of  Israel,  and  took 
a  zealous  interest  in  the  welfare  of  his  co-religionists. 
He  wrote  a  number  of  works  in  Greek,  setting  out  tb^ 


30  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

sublimity  of  the  teachings  of  Judaism,  and  defended  it 
with  much  ability  and  dignity  against  the  malicious  at- 
tacks of  its  opponents.  When  serious  trouble  arose  in 
Alexandria  through  the  endeavour  of  the  hostile  populace 
to  force  the  Jews  to  place  an  image  of  the  emperor 
Caligula  in  their  synagogues,  he  formed  part  of  the  Jew- 
ish deputation  which  went  to  Rome  to  put  the  case  before 
that  mad  ruler  of  the  world-empire.  As  a  philosopher, 
Philo  holds  a  permanent  position  among  the  notable 
thinkers  of  antiquity.  Adapting  his  ideas  on  the  Jewish 
religion  to  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  he  introduced  into 
Judaism  a  speculative  element  which  was  to  exert  a  far- 
reaching  influence.  The  allegorical  method  of  interpre- 
tation in  which  Philo  excelled,  though  not  received  per- 
manently into  the  Jewish  system,  entered  largely  into 
the  creation  and  composition  of  the  future  theology  of 
Christianity. 

§  13.  The  Rise  of  Christianity. — Amidst  the  fer- 
mentation, political  and  religious,  which  disturbed  the 
Jewish  people  as  it  struggled  under  the  yoke  of  Rome, 
there  occurred  an  event  which  was  to  shake  the  founda- 
tions of  the  ancient  world  and  to  change  the  course  of 
human  history.  The  galling  oppression  of  the  stranger, 
and  the  bitter  sense  of  helplessness  under  the  crushing 
power  of  the  Roman  legions,  bred  in  the  Jews  a  wild 
despair  which  made  them  look  forward  more  eagerly  than 
ever  to  the  appearance  of  some  one  with  extraordinary 
powers,  who,  as  the  Messiah  (Anointed),  would,  in 
accordance  with  ancient  oracles,  free  them,  and,  with 
them,  the  world,  from  the  prevailing  material  and  moral 
bondage. 

Among  the  various  claimants  to  that  office  of  danger 
and  honour  who  arose  in  the  last  days  of  Jewish  inde- 
pendence, and  who  were  ultimately  crushed  as  political 
rebels  by  the  Roman  power,  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  In 
the  Jewish  history  of  his  time  Jesus  played  no  prominent 
part.    At  the  age  of  thirty,  coming  into  contact  with  the 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  31 

Essene  John  the  Baptist,  Jesus  took  up  his  cry  that  the 
generally  expected  end  of  the  world  and  the  subsequent 
"kingdom  of  Heaven"  were  at  hand,  and  he  announced 
that  he  had  come  to  save  "the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of 
Israel."  In  thus  turning  to  the  forlorn  outcasts  of  so- 
ciety, he  added  an  exquisitely  tendei  note  to  the  spiritual 
harmony  of  man.  If  his  message  was  clothed  in  the  words 
and  ideas  of  the  prohpets  and  sages  of  his  people,  his  per- 
sonality has  shed  its  rays  over  a  large  portion  of  the  hu- 
man race.  But  the  time  of  his  appearance  was  out  of 
joint,  and  the  very  following  he  secured  proved  his  undo- 
ing. He  fell  a  victim  to  the  anarchy  and  turbulence 
which  were  to  bring  untold  misery  on  the  Jewish  nation, 
and  to  the  suspicious  jealousy  of  the  Roman  authorities, 
who  were  glad  of  any  pretext  to  do  away  with  the  Jew- 
ish popular  leaders  who  might  give  rise  to  disturbance. 
Life,  whether  it  was  the  Jife  -of  a  mere  thief  or  of  a  re- 
ligious genius  of  the  first  order,  was  then  held  in  light 
esteem,  and  crucifixion,  the  favourite  mode  of  Roman 
capital  punishment,  was  as  much  the  order  of  the  day  as 
the  guillotine  during  the  French  Revolution.  Jesus  was 
arrested  and  crucified  with  two  others,  and  with  an  al- 
lusion to  the  charge  against  Jesus  and  bitter  mockery  of 
the  Jews  in  their  own  capital,  the  Roman  executioners 
placed  over  his  cross  a  board  with  the  words,  "Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  King  of  the  Jews." 

The  profound  impression  which  Jesus,  who  in  his 
struggles  had  shared  the  fate  of  all  reformers  in  all  times, 
had  created  on  his  disciples  was  infinitely  increased  by  the 
bitter  pangs  caused  by  his  unexpected  and  shameful  death. 
After  their  first  bewilderment,  the  little  community  that 
had  looked  upon  him  as  their  lord  and  as  the  expected 
deliverer  of  his  people,  discovered  in  the  sacred  writings 
which  were  their  daily  spiritual  food  that  the  Messiah 
was  to  suffer  ignominy  and  death  before  his  assured  tri- 
umph. It  was  only  this  faith,  this  certain  hope  that 
Jesus  would  soon  return  to  earth  to  carry  his  mission 


32  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

to  an  end,  which  distinguished  the  adherents  of  Jesus 
from  the  mass  of  their  countrymen.  But  the  influx  of 
Hellenistic  Jews,  with  speculative  ideas  and  anti-nomistic 
tendencies,  changed  the  course  of  things.  Led  by  Saul, 
afterwards  named  Paul,  of  Tarsus,  a  man  of  intense  emo- 
tion, high-strung  temperament  and  boundless  energy,  the 
Hellenists  declared  for  the  abolition  of  the  Mosaic  insti- 
tutions and  the  consequent  dissolution  of  Judaism.  The 
struggle  between  the  original  apostles  and  disciples  of 
Jesus,  who  remained  zealously  attached  to  Judaism,  and 
the  growing  number  of  Gentile  followers  of  Jesus 
(largely  semi-proselytes  to  Judaism),  who  struck  out 
a  path  diverging  from  it,  ended  in  a  victory  for  the  latter, 
and,  from  a  purely  Jewish  sect,  the  believers  in  Jesus  the 
Messiah  (Christ)  developed  into  an  independent  world- 
religion,  Christianity,  or  the  religion  of  the  Messiah. 
The  strictly  Judaic  Christians  were  reduced  to  a  Chris- 
tian heresy,  known  variously  as  the  Nazarenes  or  Ebion- 
ites,  who,  on  the  one  hand,  were  spurned  by  their  Chris- 
tian co-religionists  for  denying  the  virgin-birth  and  divin- 
ity of  Jesus,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  their  unpatriotic 
refusal  to  join  the  Jews  in  their  great  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence led  to  a  deadly  enmity,  and  then  to  a  total 
separation,  between  the  Jewish  Christians  and  their 
people. 

§  14.  The  Spread  of  Judaism. — While  Judaism 
was,  on  the  one  side,  suffering  from  losses  occasioned 
by  the  absorption  of  a  number  of  its  members  among 
their  pagan  neighbours,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  ultimate 
secession  of  the  adherents  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  large 
accessions  to  the  ranks  were  taking  place  by  numerous 
conversions  to  the  faith  of  Israel.  It  is  an  old,  and  still 
current,  misconception  that  Judaism  is  averse  to  the  in- 
corporation of  strangers  within  its  midst.  The  Jewish 
theological  position,  which  makes  no  call  on  the  outside 
world  for  any  particular  profession  of  faith,  but  recog- 
nizes the  spontaneous  moral  and  religious  evolution  of 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  33 

mankind,  has  indeed  kept  Judaism  from  developing  into 
a  missionary  creed,  while  the  medieval  legislative  rigours 
and  attendant  dangers  in  connection  with  conversions  to 
Judaism  made  them  unpopular  among  the  Jews  them- 
selves. But  it  is  an  entirely  erroneous  idea  that  the 
Jews  were  opposed  to  proselytism  out  of  sheer  tribal  ex- 
clusiveness.  Apart  from  the  assimilation  of  the  autoch- 
thonous population  of  Palestine  and  the  forced  conversion 
of  the  Edomites,  Judaism  acquired  numerous  adherents 
from  among  the  various  nations  with  which  it  came  into 
contact  from  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  captivity  till  the 
rise  of  the  Christian  empire  of  Rome,  when  conversion 
to  Judaism  came  to  be  treated  as  a  capital  crime.  To- 
wards the  end  of  the  Second  Temple  we  find  Jewish 
proselytes  all  over  the  Roman  empire  and  in  neighbouring 
Parthia.  In  the  latter  country,  the  royal  house  of  Adia- 
bene  adopted  the  Jewish  faith,  and  proved  its  zealous 
defendants,  just  as  the  religion  of  Israel  found  adherents 
even  among  several  members  of  the  Roman  imperial  fam- 
ily. The  outside  interest  evinced  in  Judaism  and  its 
many  proselytes  were  matters  of  moment  \\  hich  attracted 
the  attention,  and  evoked  the  indignation,  of  Roman 
writers,  while  the  Jewish  authors  of  the  time  and  the 
New  Testament  records  provide  ample  confirmation  of 
the  vast  spread  of  Judaism  among  the  masses.  Among 
the  Hellenistic  Jews,  more  in  intellectual  touch  with 
their  alien  surroundings,  there  was  a  general  desire  to 
bring  the  heathen  over  to  the  truth ;  and,  besides  their 
propagandist  writings,  still  extant,  there  were  even  men 
like  the  Alexandrian  Apollos,  afterwards  the  friend  of 
Paul,  who  went  about  proclaiming  "the  things  of  the 
Lord,"  and  who  "compassed  sea  and  land"  to  make  prose- 
lytes. Before  and  after  Paul  appeared  on  the  scene,  the 
question  of  the  circumcision  of  male  proselytes  was  an 
open  one  among  the  Rabbis,  and  radical  Hellenists  de- 
bated the  advisability  of  abrogating  the  Jewish  observ- 
ances in  order  to  further  the  spread  of  the  spiritual  ele- 


34  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

ments  of  Judaism.  It  was  in  the  widely  scattered  syna- 
gogues where  Paul  sought  his  Gentile,  as  well  as  Jewish, 
converts,  and  for  a  considerable  time  afterwards  Judaism 
was  the  rival  of  Christianity  in  the  missionary  field. 

§  15.  The  Shadows  of  the  Roman  War. — While 
the  Jews  were  thus  occupied  with  their  spiritual  problems, 
the  days  of  the  Judean  commonwealth  were  drawing  to 
a  tragic  close  under  the  iron  rule  of  Roman  officials. 
The  throes  which  preceded  the  political  extinction  of 
Judea  form  a  sad  period  of  Jewish  history.  From  the 
governor  down  to  the  meanest  legionary,  the  Romans 
treated  the  Jews  in  their  own  country  with  a  haughty 
insolence  which  was  particularly  galling  to  a  people  per- 
haps too  keenly  conscious  of  its  achievements.  In  addi- 
tion to  this,  the  representatives  of  Rome  came  to  Palestine 
with  a  grasping  greed  which  endeavoured  to  extort  from 
the  far-away  Asiatic  subject  race  as  much  treasure  as 
possible.  It  is,  therefore,  not  surprising  that  the  Jews 
shrunk  from  the  Roman  census  instituted  for  the  purpose 
of  taxation ;  that  now  and  again  they  turned  against  their 
alien  oppressors,  and  that  the  usual  bloody  repression  of 
these  revolts  left  the  people  more  sullen  than  ever.  On 
some  occasions,  like  the  placing  of  the  Roman  eagles  on 
the  Temple  gates,  conflagrations  broke  out  which  were 
quenched  by  torrents  of  blood. 

A  stray  ray  of  light  appeared  unexpectedly  by  the  short 
re-establishment  of  the  Jewish  kingdom  under  Agrippa  I, 
a  grandson  of  Herod,  by  Mariamne  the  Hasmonean. 
Thanks  to  the  favour  of  Caligula,  Agrippa  was  invested 
with  the  kingly  dignity,  and  he  ultimately  entered  into 
possession  of  the  whole  of  Palestine  (about  41  C.E.). 
His  brief  reign  of  three  years  came  like  a  healing  balsam 
to  the  suffering  Jewish  people.  He  not  only  secured  or- 
derly government  to  the  harassed  country,  but  did  every- 
thing possible  to  soothe  the  troubled  mind  of  its  people. 
Of  great  service  to  the  Jews,  both  in  Judea  and  in  Egypt, 
was   his   timely    intervention    with    Caligula,   who    had 


THE   SECOND   TEMPLE  35 

ordered  his  statue  to  be  erected  and  worshipped  in  the 
Temple  and  other  Jewish  sanctuaries.  His  success,  how- 
ever, aroused  the  displeasure  of  the  Romans^  and  his 
suspiciously  sudden  death  left  the  Jews  mourning,  while 
it  was  riotously  celebrated  by  the  foreign  population,  espe- 
cially the  Roman  soldiery,  whose  brutalities  were  soon 
to  find  ample  scope  in  the  final  Jewish  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence. 

After  the  death  of  Agrippa  I,  Judea  became  again  a 
Roman  province,  while  his  son,  Agrippa  II,  was  later  on 
invested  with  not  only  the  small  kingdom  of  Chalcis  and 
other  possessions,  but  also  with  the  office  of  supervisor  of 
the  Temple  and  the  accompanying  right  of  nominating 
the  High  Priest.  Agrippa  II,  who  is  regarded  as  the 
last  king  of  the  Jews,  assisted  in  the  subjugation  of 
Judea  by  the  Romans,  and,  in  the  enjoyment  of  their 
favour,  survived  its  fall  for  several  decades. 

The  rupture  with  Rome  was  at  last  brought  about  by 
the  insufferable  rapacity  and  violence  of  Gesius  Florus, 
the  last  procurator  of  Judea  (64-66).  This  Roman  gov- 
ernor became  the  omnipotent  protector  of  bands  of  rob- 
bers who  infested  the  country,  and  whose  plunder  was 
shared  by  him,  and  he  deliberately  goaded  the  Jews  into 
rebellion  so  that  he  might  profit  thereb}-.  He  entered 
Jerusalem,  and,  in  spite  of  the  purposely  peaceful  de- 
meanour of  the  inhabitants,  massacred  them  without 
mercy.  Disappointed  at  the  unexpected  want  of  re- 
sistance by  the  Jews,  he  called  on  their  leaders,  as  a  proof 
of  their  good-will,  to  meet  on  their  way  two  cohorts  of 
troops  who  were  marching  on  Jerusalem.  Even  this  was 
complied  with,  but  the  Roman  soldiers  received  the  Jew- 
ish deputation  with  such  studied  contempt,  that  the  affair 
ended  in  a  general  attack  on  the  Jews.  The  people  of 
Jerusalem  rose  in  their  despair,  and  forced  Florus  to 
evacuate  the  city.  But  Agrippa,  who  had  all  this  time 
been  away  from  Judea,  now  returned,  and  successfully 
prevailed  on  the  insurgents  to  submit  quietly  to  the  in- 


36  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

evitable  dominion  of  Rome.  So  soon,  however,  as  he 
proposed  that  the  people  should  recognize  the  authority 
of  Florus,  they  broke  out  into  such  uncontrollable  anger 
that  he  was  glad  to  escape  from  their  fury.  Some  of  the 
bolder  spirits  thereupon  seized  the  powerful  fortress  of 
Masada,  near  the  Dead  Sea,  while  the  warlike  party  in 
Jerusalem  went  to  the  extreme  step  of  refusing  to  accept 
any  imperial  offerings  to  the  Temple,  or  to  have  the 
usual  sacrifices  for  the  emperor  there.  The  moderate 
leaders,  finding  their  authority  unheeded,  sent  deputations 
to  Florus  and  Agrippa,  begging  them  to  come  to  their 
rescue.  But  it  was  too  late;  the  suppressed  feelings  of 
frantic  vengeance  excited  and  nurtured  in  the  Jews  had 
exploded  at  last  with  a  terrible  crash,  and  carried  every- 
thing along  with  it. 

§  1 6.  The  War  with  Rome. — It  would  be  futile  to 
inquire  whether  the  fateful  insurrection  should,  or  could, 
have  been  averted.  In  the  histories  of  nations,  as  of 
individuals,  it  is  success  which  turns  the  rebel  into  a 
hero,  and  accounts  the  revolt  of  a  people  against  its  op- 
pressors among  its  most  glorious  events.  The  Macca- 
bean  rising  against  the  powerful  Syrians  has  received 
universal  applause,  hopeless  though  it  must  be  acknowl- 
edged to  have  been  at  first  sight.  With  the  degeneration 
and  profligacy  which  had  generally  overtaken  the  Romans 
under  the  emperors;  with  the  callous  ferocity  and  insa- 
tiable greed  which  then  marked  Roman  administration  of 
the  subject-races  in  distant  parts  of  the  empire,  the  Jews 
could  not  for  ever  escape  the  fate  which  had  made  an  end 
to  the  other  states  under  the  Roman  dominion.  Con- 
tinually outraged  in  their  religious  susceptibilities  by  inso- 
lent and  scheming  governors  and  their  subordinates,  the 
Jews  of  Palestine  were  also  threatened  by  the  foreign 
settlers  there  with  the  same  humiliating  conditions  to 
which  the  Macedonian  conquerors  had  reduced  the  native 
Egyptians  in  their  own  country. 

At  the  beginning  of  their  rebellion  the  Jews  were  in- 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  37 

flamed  by  the  wholesale  carnage  to  which  their  brethren 
were  subjected  by  the  Syrians  and  Greeks  in  the  prov- 
inces, and  they  were  still  further  encouraged  and  en- 
tirely committed  by  the  disastrous  defeat  which  they  in- 
flicted on  Cestius  Gallus,  the  prefect  of  Syria,  who  had 
come  to  Jerusalem  to  subdue  them — a  defeat  such  as 
the  Romans  had  not  suffered  since  the  destruction  of 
Varus'  legions  by  the  Germans.  The  news  of  this  event 
created  surprise  and  consternation  among  the  Romans, 
and  the  emperor  Nero  dispatched  Vespasian,  the  greatest 
living  Roman  general,  to  quell  the  revolt  in  Palestine. 
Vespasian  was  joined  by  his  son  Titus,  and,  with  the 
pick  of  the  Roman  army,  they  entered  on  the  subjugation 
of  the  rebellious  Jews  with  all  the  accustomed  vigour 
and  rigour  which  had  awed  the  whole  Western  world 
into  abject  submission. 

For  four  long  and  terrible  years  this  little  people  in 
an  obscure  corner  of  the  empire  withstood  the  power  and 
skill  of  the  conqueror  of  the  Britons  and  of  the  most 
famous  legions  of  Rome.  The  war  was  carried  on,  on 
both  sides,  with  implacable  ferocity  rare  in  the  annals  of 
warfare — the  Romans  enraged  at  the  obstinate  and  pro- 
longed resistance  of  the  erstwhile  despised  Jews;  the 
Jews  fighting  with  all  the  despair  and  heroism  born  in 
the  defence  of  home  and  religion  against  the  insolent 
alien  tyrant.  It  must  remain  a  surprise  to  the  historian, 
and  ought  to  excite  the  admiration  of  posterity,  that  the 
feeble  Jews,  who  had  dreaded  the  frown  of  a  Roman 
procurator,  now  withstood  unflinchingly  all  the  might 
and  majesty  of  the  Roman  army.  The  Jews  had  become 
a  race  of  men  who  knew  neither  fear  nor  would  hear  of 
surrender.  The  valour  of  the  rank  and  file  responded 
to  leaders  of  extraordinary  daring  and  fertde  ingenuity 
— men  like  John  of  Gischala,  Simon  bar  Giora,  Josephus 
— the  last  still  more  famous  as  the  historian  of  his 
people,  which,  in  the  time  of  its  direst  need,  he  deserted, 
and  left  to  its  own  resources. 


38  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

§  17.  The  Fall  of  Judea. — The  end,  if  it  had  not 
yet  come,  was  onlj'  delayed.  The  Romans,  if  not  irresist- 
ible, still  advanced  on  the  Jewish  capital  and  laid  it  under 
siege.  And  to  the  remorseless  carnage  of  the  Romans 
was  added  the  wild  frenzy  which  had  now  taken  hold 
of  the  Jewish  people.  In  the  words  of  the  ancient  im- 
precations against  them — which  seemed  to  come  true  with 
an  awful  literalness — "without  did  the  sword  bereave 
and  in  the  chambers  terror."  Something  of  that  delirious 
violence  which  in  our  own  times  took  hold  of  Paris  under 
the  Commune,  shook  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  to  their 
innermost  depths.  The  enemy  was  at  the  gates,  but  the 
besieged  people  within,  rent  in  factions,  were  tearing  each 
other  to  pieces.  The  city,  filled  with  a  vast  population, 
which  had  been  swelled  by  the  immense  number  of  pil- 
grims who  had  come  there  to  celebrate  the  feast  of  Pass- 
over, underwent  all  the  horrors  of  civil  war  while  the 
deadly  grasp  of  the  Romans  was  growing  tighter  and 
tighter  upon  them.  Assassination  and  massacre  were 
general,  and  even  the  pavements  of  the  Temple  reeked 
with  human  blood ;  then  famine  made  its  dreaded  appear- 
ance, and  killed  every  remaining  trace  of  pity  or  human 
feeling. 

Vespasian  proceeded  to  Rome  to  take  over  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  empire,  and  it  was  left  to  Titus  to  bring 
about  the  complete  subjugation  of  the  Jews.  The  Jews 
contested  every  inch  of  their  territory,  of  their  capital, 
of  the  Temple.  Their  deeds  of  heroic  valour  only  made 
the  agony  of  death  longer  and  more  bitter.  Jerusalem 
was  at  last  turned  into  a  heap  of  ruins,  and,  after  a  fran- 
tic resistance,  on  the  9  (or  10)  Ab,  70  c.e.  (the  ominous 
anniversary  of  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  of  Solomon 
by  Nebuchadnezzar),  the  Second  Temple  became  a  prey 
to  the  flames,  and  all  its  magnificence  and  glory  were 
turned  into  a  mass  of  smouldering  ashes.  A  cry  of  horror 
— the  cry  of  the  anguish  of  death  of  a  whole  people — 
went  up  to  heaven  when  the  miserable  remnant  saw  the 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  39 

destroying  flames  encircling  the  noble  sanctuary  of  the 
God  of  Israel. 

Innumerable  were  the  victims  which  the  war  had  cost 
the  Jewish  nation,  still  the  end  had  not  yet  come. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  had  laid  down  their  lives  in  the 
struggle,  but  the  survivors,  if  not  massacred  in  cold  blood, 
were  sold  as  slaves,  sent  to  work  in  the  mines,  or  to  fight 
against  wild  beasts  or  as  gladiators  for  the  amusement  of 
their  exulting  enemies.  Vespasian  and  Titus  celebrated 
their  victory  by  a  triumphal  procession  in  Rome,  which 
was  graced  by  700  specially  selected  captives,  headed  by 
their  dauntless  leaders  John  of  Gischala  and  Simon  bar 
Giora,  the  latter  being  finally  put  to  an  ignominious 
death. 

§  18.  The  Last  Struggle  for  Independence. — 
Utterly  hopeless  was  now  the  outlook  of  the  Jewish 
struggle  for  independence,  and  still,  incredible  as  it  may 
seem,  in  spite  of  the  complete  destruction  of  Jerusalem 
and  the  desolation  of  the  whole  country,  the  Jewish  re- 
sistance to  Rome  was  by  no  means  over,  and  was  yet  to 
blaze  out  in  a  fierce,  lurid  flame.  Several  Jewish  strong- 
holds still  held  out,  and  Masada,  the  last  of  them,  was 
only  taken  by  the  Romans  after  the  self-inflicted  immola- 
tion of  its  defenders.  The  country  was  administered 
WMth  an  iron  rod,  but  the  calm,  where  it  was  not  the 
calm  of  death,  was  only  an  outward  one.  The  land  was 
not  only  declared  as  forfeited  to  the  imperial  treasury, 
but  all  the  Jews  in  the  empire  were  now  forced  to  pay 
an  annual  capitation  tax  of  two  drachms  to  the  Temple 
of  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  in  place  of  the  half-shekel  which 
they  had  hitherto  contributed  to  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem. 
This  special  Jewish  tax,  fiscus  Judaicus,  which  was  at 
first  collected  with  great  brutality,  rigorous  care  being 
taken  that  no  one  should  escape  paying  it,  produced  a 
strong  feeling  of  resentment  amongst  the  Jews. 

The  war  in  Palestine  had  its  aftermath  in  Eg^pt,  the 
adjoining  Cyrenaica  and  in  Cyprus,  where  violent  colli- 


40  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

sions  between  the  numerous  Jews  and  their  neighbours 
led  to  incredible  bloodshed  between  the  combatants. 
Stirred  by  the  inextinguishable  hope  for  the  restoration 
of  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  and  driven  to  desperation  by 
the  contemplated  establishment  by  Hadrian  of  a  pagan 
city  on  the  site  of  Jerusalem,  even  the  Jews  in  Judea 
began  again  to  prepare  for  another  trial  of  strength  with 
Rome,  which  culminated  in  the  year  132,  only  six  decades 
after  the  great  combat  which  had  proved  so  disastrous  to 
them.  The  head  of  the  revolt  was  Bar  Coziba,  called 
Bar  Cochba,  "Son  of  the  Star"  (in  allusion  to  Num.  xxiv. 
17),  of  whose  deeds  of  prowess  little  that  is  historical 
is  known,  but  who  must  be  adjudged  a  leader  of  extra- 
ordinary personal  magnetism  and  a  warrior  of  truly  won- 
drous power  and  skill.  The  prayer  ascribed  to  him,  "We 
pray  Thee  do  not  give  assistance  to  the  enemy;  us  Thou 
needst  not  help,"  gives  perhaps  a  faithful  picture  of  the 
man.  He  was  supported  by  the  universally  revered 
Rabbi  Akiba,  whose  unbounded  authority  over  his  breth- 
ren made  the  insurrection  a  national  one.  The  success 
of  the  Jews  again  forced  Rome  to  send  its  ablest  com- 
mander, Julius  Severus,  who  came  all  the  way  from 
Britain  to  break  their  rebellious  spirit.  The  Jews  resisted 
for  a  period  of  over  three  years,  and  the  war  was  only 
concluded  with  the  fall  of  Bethar,  the  last  Jewish  strong- 
hold, and  the  death  of  Bar  Cochba  in  its  defence  (9  Ab — 
the  date  of  the  twofold  destruction  of  Jerusalem — 135). 
The  butcheries  enacted  rivalled  those  in  the  war  with 
Titus,  over  half-a-million  Jews  having  lost  their  lives, 
and  the  consequences  were,  if  possible,  still  more  disas- 
trous. The  religion  of  the  Jews  was  proscribed,  and 
those  found  guilty  of  teaching  or  preaching  it  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  most  excruciating  tortures  which  human 
ingenuity  and  a  devilish  lust  of  blood  could  devise. 
Rabbi  Akiba  was  flayed  alive  and  then  done  to  death. 
Under  pain  of  death,  no  Jew  dared  to  appear  even  in  the 
vicinity  of  Jerusalem,   which   was   now  turned   into  a 


THE  SECOND  TEMPLE  41 

Roman  colony,  ^^lia  Capitolina,  and  the  very  name  of 
Jerusalem  was  henceforth  to  be  obliterated  from  the  mind 
of  man.  The  Jews,  who  had  been  the  last  of  the  na- 
tions under  Roman  dominion  to  fight  for  what,  in  all 
sincerity  and  with  all  reverence,  we  may  call  the  sacred 
cause  of  freedom,  were  at  last  crushed  in  the  dust,  and  lay 
a  helpless  body,  bleeding  from  innumerable  wounds. 


CHAPTER  III 
The  Talmudic  Age 

§  I.  The  Dispersion. — One  of  the  most  far-reach- 
ing effects  of  the  Judeo-Roman  wars,  and  of  the  conse- 
quent destruction  of  the  Jewish  national  centre,  was  the 
wide  dispersion  of  that  people,  which  has  remained  to 
this  day  one  of  its  most  distinguishing  features.  The 
Jews  who  escaped  from  the  sword  and  fury  of  the  Roman 
soldiery  were  met  by  violent  and  malevolent  Syrians, 
Greeks,  Egyptians  or  Roman  neighbours,  who  gloated 
over  the  Jewish  misfortunes  and  kept  the  Jews  cowed 
with  threats  of  still  worse  results.  It  is,  therefore,  not 
surprising  that  the  Jews,  who  by  their  very  turbulence 
appear  to  have  been  a  high-spirited  race,  proceeded  far 
away  from  Palestine  to  localities  where  the  Jew  was  a 
stranger,  yet  considered  as  entitled  to  the  protection  and 
respect  due  to  a  human  being. 

The  Babylonian  captivity  had  transferred  the  bulk  of 
the  Jews  to  Mesopotamia,  and,  in  spite  of  the  continuous 
remigration  which  took  place  to  Palestine,  the  Babylonian 
Jews  remained  a  very  numerous  community'.  While  liv- 
ing in  a  compact  mass,  many  of  them  found  their  way 
all  over  the  Parthian  and  subsequent  Neo-Persian  em- 
pires ;  they  spread  Jewish  colonies  along  the  shores  of  the 
Black  Sea,  as  far  as  the  Crimea,  where  Jews  had  already 
followed  in  the  wake  of  the  Greeks,  and  cast  out  branches 
all  over  Central  Asia,  stretching  as  far  as  China,  where 
a  dwindling  community  has  subsisted  to  our  own  day. 

42 


THE  TALMUDIC  AGE  43 

Yet,  in  however  flourishing  a  material  condition  they 
may  have  been,  intellectually  the  Babylonian  Jews  were 
for  a  long  time  of  no  account  in  Jewish  life,  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  remained  free  from  those  dissolving  in- 
fluences winch  threatened  the  existence  of  the  Jews  in 
the  Greco-Roman  world,  including  Palestine.  Politically 
also  they  were  able  to  offer  a  safe  asylum  to  their  breth- 
ren escaping  oppression,  as  well  as  to  resist  the  Romans 
in  their  aggressions  on  the  Parthian  territories  bordering 
the  Euphrates. 

To  the  Babylonians,  as  to  the  Jews  of  all  other  parts^ 
Palestine  remained  the  centre  of  the  Dispersion.  For,  in 
truth,  the  Torah  went  out  of  Zion  and  the  word  of  God 
from  Jerusalem.  The  tax  of  the  half-shekel  which  was 
sent  to  the  Temple  brought  in  such  vast  wealth  to  its 
treasury  that  any  disturbance  of  it  by  the  rapacity  of 
sacrilegious  invaders  affected  the  price  of  gold  in  the 
markets  of  the  world.  The  Macedonian  conquests  and 
the  break-up  of  the  intellectual  isolation  of  the  Jews, 
brought  about  a  vast  and  interesting  development  of  the 
Jewish  Dispersion.  Under  the  friendly  rule  of  the  Egyp- 
tian Ptolemies,  who  were  also  masters  of  Palestine,  great 
numbers  of  Jews  settled  in  Egypt,  where,  to  judge  by 
the  Elephantine  papyri  recently  come  to  light,  Jewish 
communities  of  importance  had  existed  from  the  time  of 
the  Babylonian  captivity,  when  Jeremiah  and  other  Jews 
left  for  that  country.  Especially  in  Alexandria,  where 
they  formed  an  autonomous  part  of  the  population,  dis- 
tinguished by  their  opulence  and  culture,  the  Jews  rivalled 
the  Greek  inhabitants,  with  whom  in  later  times  they 
repeatedy  came  into  sanguinary  collision.  While  the  in- 
fluntial  commercial  class  envied  and  hated  the  Jews  as 
their  competitors,  the  lower  orders  of  Alexandria,  com- 
posed of  those  mixed  and  debased  elements  always  to  be 
met  with  in  great  Levantine  sea-ports,  lent  themselves 
freely  to  any  attack  on  the  wealthy  Jews.  Thus  the 
malicious   attempt   to   place   the  statue   of   the   reigning 


44  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

emperor  Caligula  in  the  synagogues,  which  was  stoutly 
resisted  by  the  Jews,  was  brought  about  by  the  ribaldry 
and  turbulence  of  the  rabble,  and  weakness  or  connivance 
of  the  Roman  prefect  led  to  the  wholesale  massacre  and 
degradation  of  the  Jewish  citizens  of  Alexandria.  The 
whole  procedure  on  that  occasion  had  in  it  all  the  ele- 
ments and  sequence  of  events  that  have  become  familiar 
to  us  in  the  modern  Russian  attacks  on  the  Jews  in  Odes- 
sa, who  are  placed  in  a  position  in  certain  respects  similar 
to  that  occupied  by  their  co-religionists  in  ancient  Alex- 
andria. Still  the  Jews  were  able  to  maintain  their  ground, 
as  their  subsequent  formidable  revolts  tend  to  show. 
From  Egypt,  the  Jews  overflowed  into  the  neighbour- 
ing Cyrenaica,  where  they  also  formed  a  very  populous 
centre. 

When  the  Judean  Jews  came  into  official  contact  with 
Rome,  they  had  already  spread  into  the  Seleucidan  terri- 
tories of  Syria,  far  away  in  Asia  Minor,  as  well  as  into 
the  Greek  islands,  especially  Cyprus.  In  Rome  itself  the 
Jewish  colony,  which  arose  through  the  commercial  re- 
lations with  Alexandria  and  the  Maccabean  embassy  to 
that  city,  was  largely  reinforced  by  the  Jewish  captives 
brought  by  Pompey  from  Palestine,  and  the  subsequent 
troubles  helped  to  fill  the  place  with  many  more  Jewish 
slaves.  The  treaty  of  friendship  with  Rome,  by  which 
it  lent  its  powerful  protection  to  the  Jews  to  the  extent 
of  its  wide  influence,  gave  a  further  stimulus  to  the  mi- 
gration of  the  Jews,  while  the  unfortunate  wars,  which 
made  the  Jewish  slave  a  glut  in  the  market,  distributed 
them  all  over  the  empire,  far  away  in  Greece,  Italy,  Gaul 
and  Spain.  The  broad-minded  policy  adopted  towards  the 
scattered  Jewish  communities  by  most  of  the  emperors, 
particularly  by  Julius  Czesar,  whose  friendliness  to  that 
people  rendered  his  memory  a  grateful  one  among  them, 
was  also  an  effective  aid  to  their  dispersion. 

§  2.  The  Rally. — The  fall  of  Jerusalem  had  left  the 
Jews  stunned  under  a  catastrophe  such  as  they  may  have 


THE  TALMUDIC  AGE  43 

only  dreaded,  but  had  been  afraid  to  contemplate.  The 
spirit  of  the  Jews  was  broken,  and  they  were  now  even 
incapable  of  expressing  their  unutterable  grief  in  elegies 
such  as  commemorated  the  destruction  of  their  capital  by 
Nebuchadnezzar  or  the  bloody  persecutions  which  were 
still  in  store  for  them  a  thousand  years  after.  Had  the 
Jews  only  been  a  nation  like  others,  they  would,  like  the 
powerful  Carthaginians,  have  become  extinguished  with 
the  end  of  their  state;  had  they  been  a  religious  commu- 
nity bound  to  some  local  sanctuary  and  with  no  universal 
outlook,  like  that  of  the  kindred  Samaritans,  they  would 
have  been  exterminated,  or  have  perished  for  want  of  a 
living  spirit.  But  Judaism  represented  both  a  nation 
with  a  remarkable  past  and  with  a  still  more  soaring  vi- 
sion of  the  future,  as  well  as  a  religion  which,  incon- 
testably  the  purest  and  highest  of  antiquity,  embraced 
within  its  range  the  wliole  of  mankind,  and  even  in  its 
practical  workings  showed  itself  adaptable  to  every  clime 
and  civilization.  It  may  be  questioned  whether,  to  attain 
its  goal,  Judaism  had  done  better  to  divest  itself  of  its  na- 
tionalistic embodiments  and  to  have  identified  itself  with 
the  tendencies  assumed  by  nascent  Christianity;  but,  had 
this  been  done,  the  Jews  would  have  shared  the  inglori- 
ous fate  of  the  equally  gifted,  and  much  more  generous, 
powerful  and  influential  Greek  people;  they  would  have 
been  overwhelmed  by  the  flowing  tide  of  Christianity, 
and,  ha\ing  lost  their  heroic  consciousness  or  abdicated 
their  religious  mission,  would  have  ceased  to  possess  any 
special  message,  or  to  make  any  additional  contribution, 
to  the  spiritual  and  social  life  of  mankind.  Again,  if 
there  was  any  purpose  in  preserving  intact  the  ethical 
Monotheism  of  the  Jews,  as  distinguished  from  Trinita- 
rian and  anthropomorphic  conceptions  of  the  Deity,  and 
their  social  ideal  of  a  kingdom  of  this  world  hallowed 
by  justice  and  righteousness,  as  opposed  to  a  kingdom  of 
which  heaven  is  the  centre  of  gravity,  then  Judaism  was 
fortunate  in  having  at  hand  men,  who,  at  the  most  crit- 


46  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

ical  time,  had  the  clear  foresight  and  the  determinated 
energy  to  save  Judaism  from  the  wreckage  which  threat- 
ened to  bury  it. 

Among  those  who  re-established  Judaism  under  the 
new  conditions,  Rabban  Jochanan  ben  Zaccai  has  earned 
grateful  distinction.  It  was  he  who,  amidst  the  violence 
and  confusion  attending  the  fall  of  the  Jewish  state, 
recognized  that,  of  all  the  vast  issues  involved,  the  great- 
est was  the  preservation  of  Judaism.  Invested  with  the 
authority  of  recognized  succession  to  Hillel,  he  trans- 
ferred the  nerve-centre  of  Judaism  from  Jerusalem  to 
Jamnia  (Jabneh).  He  had  been  in  Jerusalem  during 
the  siege  by  Vespasian  and,  finding  that  his  moderate 
counsels  were  of  no  avail,  he  escaped  the  doom  of  the 
city  by  being  carried  out  of  it  in  a  coffin  on  the  shoulders 
of  devoted  disciples.  He  appeared  before  Vespasian,  and 
obtained  permission  to  transfer  his  activity  to  Jamnia, 
which,  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  became  the  seat  of  a 
great  Rabbinical  academy  and  of  the  reconstructed  San- 
hedrin.  Thus  the  authority  of  the  supreme  religious  and 
legislative  councils  was  not  only  preserved,  but  the  study 
and  development  of  the  Torah  (comprising  under  this 
comprehensive  designation  the  written  canonical  Scrip- 
tures and  their  oral  interpretations  and  amplifications) 
received  a  fresh  impetus.  For  150  years  after  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem,  a  series  of  men  of  light  and  leading,  the 
Tannaim  (Teachers),  continued  their  activity  as  doctors 
of  the  Law  and  as  the  highest  recognized  authorities  on 
Jewish  life  and  thought. 

Pre-eminent  among  the  Tannaim  w^as  Rabbi  Akiba  ben 
Joseph,  the  patriot  who  suffered  martyrdom  in  connection 
with  the  Bar  Cochba  insurrection  (135).  Rabbi  Akiba 
finally  settled  the  canon  of  the  Jewish  sacred  Scriptures, 
rejecting  various  books  now  included  in  the  collection  of 
writings  known  as  the  Apocrypha.  In  order  to  supersede 
the  faulty  and  misleading  Septuagint  translation  of  the 
Bible,  which  was  used  against  the  Jews  by  Christian  con- 


THE  TALMUDIC  AGE  47 

troverslallsts,  another,  more  faithful,  Greek  rendering 
(now  lost  with  the  exception  of  some  fragments)  was 
carried  out  under  his  supervision  by  Aquila,  a  proselyte 
to  Judaism.  Of  more  enduring  service  to  the  orderly 
progress  of  Judaism  was  his  systcmatization  of  the  legal- 
istic aspect  of  Judaism  as  developed  by  continuous  tra- 
dition. In  spite  of  the  profound  significance  he  attached 
to  the  letter  of  Law,  he  was  remarkably  free  from  the 
shackles  of  stereotyped  interpretation  or  of  a  slavish  ad- 
herence to  prejudice,  as  is  shown,  for  example,  in  his 
friendly  attitude  towards  the  hated  Samaritans.  The 
Mosaic  injunction  to  love  the  fcllowman  as  oneself,  he 
declared  to  be  the  basic  principle  of  the  Torah.  Although 
he  was  instrumental  in  introducing  the  study  of  the 
Torah  as  an  all-sufficing  object  for  the  exercise  of  the 
Jewish  mind,  he  explored  the  realms  of  philosophy  and 
mysticism,  but,  unlike  some  of  his  contemporaries,  "he 
entered  in  peace  and  went  out  in  peace." 

Another  factor  of  great  and  beneficial  influence  in  the 
consolidation  of  the  Jewish  people  was  the  rise  of  a  new 
dignity,  the  holders  of  which  for  several  centuries  figured 
as  the  religious  heads  of  the  Jewish  community.  It  was 
Gamaliel  II,  a  descendant  of  Hillel  and  grandson  of 
Rabban  Gamaliel  (mentioned  in  the  New  Testament), 
who  succeeded  Rabban  Jochanan  ben  Zaccai  as  President 
of  the  College,  or  Sanhedrin,  at  Jamnia,  and  who  as- 
sumed the  title  of  Nasi  (prince  or  patriarch).  This  of- 
fice, which  remained  hereditary  in  the  family  of  Gamaliel 
and  was  officially  recognized  by  the  Roman  government, 
was  invested  with  various  privileges,  and  formed  not  only 
an  effective  bond  between  the  scattered  Jews,  but  also 
raised  their  standing  as  a  body  in  the  eyes  of  others. 
After  several  changes  of  residence,  the  patriarchs,  to- 
gether with  their  college,  settled  in  Tiberias,  on  the  lake 
of  Genesareth,  where  their  pontifical  court  rose  to  a  cer- 
tain state  of  splendour.  They  kept  in  touch  with  the 
faithful  bv  means  of   legates,  who  visited   the  outlying 


48  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

communities,   and  thereby  wielded  a  unifying  authority 
over  the  whole  Dispersion. 

§  3.  Judaism  in  Babylonia. — Parallel  with  the 
march  of  events  in  Palestine  after  the  fall  of  the  Jewish 
commonwealth,  the  numerous  and  compact  body  of  Jews 
under  the  rule  of  Parthia  developed  certain  institutions  of 
their  own  which  were  to  make  Babylonia  the  home  and 
centre  of  Jewish  life  and  thought.  The  Jews  became 
united  under  the  authority  of  a  Prince  of  the  Captivity 
(Resh  Gelutha),  who  was  also  recognized  by  the  Parthian 
kings  as  head  of  their  Jewish  subjects.  The  Princes  of  the 
Captivity,  who  claimed  descent  from  the  royal  house  of 
David,  were  at  first  more  concerned  with  administrative 
functions,  and  in  matters  of  religion,  especially  in  the  fix- 
ing of  the  calendar,  had  to  content  themselves  to  receive 
the  directions  of  the  authorities  in  the  motherland.  But 
the  unsettled  condition  of  things  in  Palestine,  particularly 
the  religious  persecutions  connected  with  the  Bar  Cochba 
insurrection,  brought  to  Babylonia  many  scholars  who  gave 
an  impetus  to  Jewish  learning  in  the  populous  colony 
across  the  Euphrates.  In  219  c.e.  the  return  from  Pal- 
estine of  the  Babylonian  Abba  Arica,  named  Rab  (the 
Master),  to  his  native  country,  inaugurated  for  Bab3'lo- 
nian  Judaism  a  new  era,  the  effects  of  which  were  felt 
for  many  centuries  to  come.  Rab,  whose  utterances  and 
achievements  stamp  him  as  a  teacher  and  personality  of 
exceptional  power,  brought  the  Babylonians  to  the  front 
of  Jewish  culture,  and  the  great  academies  of  Nehardea, 
Sura,  Pumpedita  and  Machuza,  which  gradually  super- 
seded the  Palestinian  colleges,  became  centres  of  attrac- 
tion to  vast  numbers  from  all  parts  willing  to  acquire  or 
to  impart  knowledge.  With  the  intellectual  advancement 
of  the  Babylonian  Jews,  the  oflfice  of  the  Prince  of  the 
Captivity  also  received  an  added  lustre.  On  the  one 
hand,  he  was  invested  with  important  powers,  which 
gave  him  the  rank  and  style  of  a  minor  sovereign;  on 
the  other  hand,   the  Jewish   patriarch   in  Tiberias  was 


THE    TALMUDIC    AGE  49 

harassed  and  limited  in  his  authority  by  unfriendly  rulers, 
until  the  dip:nity  was  entirely  abolished  in  the  year  415, 
and  the  spiritual  supremacy  wielded  from  Palestine  passed 
over  to  Babylonia. 

§  4.  The  Talmud. — The  accumulated  results  of  the 
debates,  pronouncements  and  decisions  of  the  schools  in 
Palestine  and  Babylonia  were  ultimately  deposited  in  the 
Talmud — one  of  the  gigantic  monuments  of  the  human 
intellect.  About  the  year  200  c.e.  the  Palestinian  Rabbi 
Judah  the  Patriarch  (also  called  the  Holy,  on  account 
of  the  purity  of  his  life,  or  simply  Rabbi)  collected  and 
edited  the  existing  materials  which  had  hitherto  been 
handed  down  in  a  znva  voce  manner.  This  compendium, 
called  the  Mishnah,  comprised  in  six  parts  an  exposition  of 
Jewish  lav/  and  custom  in  all  their  ramifications,  and  be- 
came the  authoritative  course-book  in  the  studies  of  the 
schools.  The  compilation  of  tlie  Mishnah  as  the  code  of 
Jewish  private  and  public  life  in  addition  to  the  Torah  of 
Moses,  its  foundation,  was  an  event  of  almost  the  first 
order.  The  Tannaim  (the  Teachers)  of  the  Mishnah 
were  now  succeeded  by  the  Amoraim  (the  Interpreters) 
of  the  academies  which  flourished  simultaneously  in  Pal- 
estine and  Babylonia.  The  discussions  and  controversies 
which  the  dicta  and  decisions  of  the  Mishnah  aroused, 
the  emendations  and  amplifications  which  were  brought 
about  in  the  course  of  time,  the  questions,  answers  and 
diverging  opinions,  sublime  allegories  and  profound  para- 
bles, weighty  utterances  of  eternal  import  mixed  with 
casual  and  flippant  observations,  ritualistic  minutine  of 
wearisome  length  with  bold  words  on  things  divine,  fierce 
flashes  of  hatred  breaking  upon  serene  expressions  of  the 
most  exalted  human  sympathies,  the  folklore  and  supersti- 
tions together  with  the  wisdom  of  ages — all  these  were 
incorporated  in  the  Gemara,  which,  together  with  the 
Mishnah  as  its  kernel,  formed  the  Talmud.  As  the 
Gemara  was  elaborated  more  or  less  independently  in 
the  Palestinian  and  Babylonian  colleges,  there  was  formed 


so  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

a  "Jerusalem"  and  "Babylonian"  Talmud,  but  the  decay 
of  the  colleges  in  the  Holy  Land  and  the  greater  prestige 
acquired  by  the  Babylonian  schools  gained  for  the  Baby- 
lonian Talmud  a  more  practical  and  universal  acceptance. 
The  Talmud,  which  represents  a  record  of  the  intel- 
lectual and  religious  life  of  the  Jews  for  a  period  of  al- 
most a  thousand  years  (from  the  Babylonian  captivity  till 
500  C.E.),  has  been  so  closely  identified  with  the  future 
development  of  the  Jewish  people  that  it  has  shared  their 
checkered  fortunes  in  all  their  various  manifestations. 
Internally,  the  Talmud  has  formed  the  battle-ground  of 
the  Jewish  mind,  and,  until  a  few  generations  ago,  its 
authority  as  the  ultimate  court  of  appeal  m  matters  af- 
fecting religious  practice  was  hardly  contested.  Whether 
in  the  most  flourishing  periods  of  Jewish  thought,  or 
when  all  the  avenues  of  learning  were  closed  to  the  Jews, 
the  Talmud  retained  its  supreme  place  as  a  subject  of 
close  and  unremitting  study  and  research,  which  in  the 
Jewish  theological  field  it  has  practically  remained  to 
this  day.  But  the  closer  the  connection  between  Jewish 
life  and  the  Talmud ;  the  more  it  proved  itself  an  im- 
penetrable rampart  against  all  the  forces  of  dissolution — 
the  greater  became  the  hatred  which  it  inspired  in  the 
Jews'  enemies,  especially  among  those  who  by  their  re- 
ligious professions  were  prevented  from  attacking  the 
Jewish  Bible,  the  Old  Testament.  All  manner  of 
charges  have  thus  been  levelled  at  the  Jews  through  the 
Talmud,  and  apparently  substantiated  by  stray  texts  torn 
from  their  context  or  by  utterances  due  to  the  passions 
and  circumstances  of  the  moment.  The  Talmud,  how- 
ever, deserves  this  concentrated  venom  very  much  less 
than  the  excessive  reverence  as  the  repository  of  all  wis- 
dom which  has  long  been  paid  to  it  in  ultra-traditional 
Jewish  quarters.  If  to  the  Jew  the  Talmud  is  still,  next 
to  the  Bible,  the  most  important  production  of  the  Jew- 
ish mind,  the  non-Jew  can  only  judge  it  fairly  if  he 
approaches  it  with  the  understanding  which  is  only  born 


THE    TALMUDIC    AGE  51 

of  sympathy.  The  Talmud  suffers  very  greatly  by  the 
ephemeral  nature  of  some  of  its  matter,  by  the  rugged 
style  of  its  language,  and  the  loose  and  unsystematic 
manner  in  which  it  has  been  collected  and  edited.  The 
deepest  parables  (meshalim) — a  favourite  mode  of  Jewish 
teaching  that  is  best  known  from  that  semi-Jewish  produc- 
tion, the  New  Testament,  and  lends  such  a  charm  to  the 
words  of  Jesus  in  the  Gospels — are  related  in  a  few  ab- 
rupt sentences,  and  words  of  wondrous  beauty  or  of  pro- 
found moral  significance  are  interspersed  between  schol- 
astic triflings  or  puerile  anecdotes  with  which  masters 
and  pupils  would  enliven  their  discussion  on  some  very 
dry  subject.  Ail  this  is  somewhat  in  the  style  of  the  ir- 
ritating incongruity  in  the  Book  of  Leviticus,  where,  in 
the  same  breath,  we  are  told  to  love  our  neighbour  as 
ourselves  and  not  to  sow  the  field  with  two  kinds  of  seed. 
As  for  the  interminable  debates  on  matters  of  ritual  and 
ceremonial  observance,  the  writing  of  the  contemporary 
Church  Fathers,  not  to  speak  of  the  extraordinarily  vol- 
luminous  Acts  of  the  Saints,  provide  us  with  good  ex- 
amples of  how  the  human  mind,  concentrated  on  one  sub- 
ject, and  that  subject  religion,  will  ultimately  spread  its 
branches  in  such  a  manner  that  it  will  shut  off  from  the 
light  those  living  under  its  shadow.  The  fact,  however, 
that  the  Talmud  is  not  a  compilation  purely  religious,  but, 
basing  itself  on  the  Pentateuchal  legislation,  also  repre- 
sents the  necessarily  extensive  code  of  the  civil  and  crim- 
inal law,  the  corpus  juris  of  the  Jewish  commonwealth — 
a  code  which  is  even  still  to  a  certain  extent,  especially 
in  Eastern  countries,  in  active  use  in  Jewish  communities 
of  to-day — must  be  borne  in  mind  in  any  consideration  of 
that  monumental  production. 

§  5.  Under  the  Cross. — It  was  well  that  the  Jews 
had  been  setting  their  religious  house  in  order,  for  they 
were  about  to  be  subjected  to  a  siege  which,  in  its  endless 
length  and  unremitting  rigour,  stands  unique  in  human 
history.    The  attack  on  the  Jews  is  distinguished  by  the 


52  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

fact  that  it  is  mainly  a  religious  one,  and  so  it  has  re- 
mained to  our  own  days.  It  began  with  the  Christian- 
ization  of  the  Roman  empire  under  Constantine,  and  the 
intensity  of  the  pressure  exercised  on  the  Jews  may  be 
measured  by  the  process  by  which  the  European  nations 
underwent  that  transformation.  The  Jewish  people  had 
naturally  chafed  under  the  humiliation  which  they  ex- 
perienced by  the  conquest  of  their  land,  whose  territory, 
soaked  with  Jewish  blood  and  hallowed  by  so  many  glori- 
ous and  sad  memories,  was  now  parcelled  out  among 
heathen  and  Christian  settlers,  while  the  imposition  of  the 
fiscus  Judaicus  since  the  destruction  of  the  Temple  served 
further  to  remind  the  Jews  of  the  loss  of  their  inde- 
pendence. But,  as  a  whole,  they  enjoyed  under  the  rule 
of  pagan  Rome  liberty  of  conscience  and  even  certain 
privileges,  in  so  far  as  their  communities  were  officially 
recognized  and  their  religious  peculiarities  taken  into  cog- 
nizance. Certainly,  the  oppression  which  they  had  en- 
countered, even  if  religion  was  the  immediate  object  of 
attack,  was  due  to  political  considerations.  With  the 
rise  of  Christianity  as  the  dominant  political  power,  there 
began,  however,  a  systematic  attempt — elaborated  by  the 
clergy,  and  enforced  by  the  power  of  the  state — to  weaken 
Judaism  by  all  manner  of  repressive  enactments,  and  to 
degrade  it  into  the  unholy  cult  of  a  cursed  people — a  sen- 
timent which  is  already  expressed  in  the  late  New  Testa- 
ment phrase,  "the  church  of  Christ  and  the  synagogue  of 
Satan."  It  is  one  of  the  strangest  and  most  tragic  ironies 
of  history  that  the  Christian  Church,  whose  origin  and 
existence  is  due  to  Jews,  whose  spiritual  inspiration  and 
highest  moral  lessons  are  derived  from  the  lives  of  Jews, 
whose  sacred  books  and  divine  worship  are  the  most  sub- 
lime productions  and  manifestations  of  the  Jewish  mind; 
that  this  Church,  which  recognizes  in  a  Jew  the  greatest 
son  of  humanity  and  the  incarnation  of  God  Himself, 
which  adores  His  mother  as  the  Queen  of  Heaven  and 
as  the  highest  type  of  womanhood,  and  w^hich  has  dedi- 


THE   TALMUDIC    AGE  53 

cated  its  greatest  temples  to  the  memory  of  Jews,  should 
have  been  the  most  implacable  foe  of  the  Jewish  people 
and  of  its  religious  individuality.  It  is  a  happy  sign  of 
the  progressive  enlightenment  of  mankind,  as  well  as  the 
highest  tribute  to  the  common  aspirations  of  Judaism 
and  Christianity  that,  at  least  in  Anglo-Saxon  countries, 
the  Christian  persecution  of  the  Jews  should  now  be  re- 
garded as  one  of  those  sad  features  of  the  past  over  which 
Jew  and  Christian  alike,  for  reasons  which  do  honour  to 
both  of  them,  would  fain  draw  a  veil  of  oblivion. 

The  fortunes  of  the  Jews  have  not  only  been  very 
largely  influenced  by  the  persecutions  and  oppressions  to 
which  they  have  been  subjected,  but  these  incidents  also 
fill  out  a  large  proportion  of  the  canvas  of  Jewish  his- 
tory. It  would,  however,  not  serve  the  purpose  here  in 
view  to  chronicle  at  length  the  recurring  attempts  to 
break  the  spirit  of  the  Jew  or  to  capture  his  soul.  It 
may  be  laid  down  as  a  rule  that  those  peoples  which  had 
not  yet  been  entirely  subjected  to  ecclesiastical  control 
were  well  disposed  towards  the  peaceful  and  useful  Jews, 
and  it  is  indicative  of  their  original  relations  that  it  used 
subsequently  to  be  found  necessary  to  forbid  the  Jews 
to  admit  proselytes  and  to  threaten  with  the  penalty  of 
death  those  who  intermarried  with  their  Gentile  neigh- 
bours. The  Church  Councils,  particularly,  devised  means 
to  reduce  the  Jew  socially  to  the  state  of  a  pariah  and 
morally  to  that  of  a  leper.  Not  only  were  means  taken 
by  the  authorities  of  the  Church  to  prevent  any  social 
intercourse  between  Jews  and  Christians  (one  of  the  first 
historical  references  to  Jews  in  England  is  a  character- 
istic order  of  Egbert,  archbishop  of  York  [740],  for- 
bidding Christians  to  attend  at  Jewish  feasts),  but  they 
spurred  the  occasionally  reluctant,  and  always  more  ju- 
dicial, authority  of  the  secular  state  into  such  legislation 
and  administration  which  took  from  the  Jews  the  rights 
of  citizenship  and  even  an  honourable  livelihood.  This 
growing  darkness,  intensified  by  the  increasingly  severe 


54  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

anti-Jewish  edicts  of  succeeding  Roman  and  Byzantine 
emperors,  was  only  once  lit  up  by  a  flash  of  lightning 
when  Julian,  called  the  Apostate,  had  ascended  the 
throne.  In  his  desire  to  subvert  the  power  of  Christian- 
ity, and  to  establish  a  philosophical  paganism  in  its  stead, 
he  entered  into  friendly  relations  with  the  Jews.  He 
abolished  the  fiscus  Judaicus  and  destroyed  the  registers 
in  connection  with  the  tax.  Perhaps  to  win  the  support 
of  the  influential  Jews  in  Parthia,  with  which  he  entered 
into  war,  he  even  issued  an  order  authorizing  the  Jews 
to  rebuild  the  Temple  in  Jerusalem.  This  work 
was  indeed  begun,  but  was  interrupted  by  explosions 
in  the  vast  subterranean  excavations,  and  the  untimely 
death  of  Julian  put  an  end  for  ever  to  any  such  at- 
tempt. 

§  6.  Under  Neo-Persian  Dominion. — It  was  for- 
tunate for  the  Jews  that,  free  from  the  power  of  Rome, 
either  pagan  or  Christian,  they  were  able  to  develop  more 
or  less  undisturbed  in  their  great  settlement  Babylonia. 
Even  when  the  rule  of  the  Parthians  was  superseded  by 
that  of  the  Neo-Persian  dynasty  of  the  Sassanids  (226 
C.E.),  the  Jews  continued  to  enjoy  under  their  Prince 
of  the  Captivity  a  certain  dignity  and  security  which  were 
absent  in  their  relations  with  their  Roman  conquerors  or 
dominant  Christian  antagonists.  In  the  repeated  contests 
between  the  Byzantine  empire  and  the  Persians,  the  Jews, 
as  a  border  population,  played  an  important  part,  espe- 
cially as  they  could  be  relied  upon  to  resist  stoutly  the 
yoke  of  the  hated  Romans.  In  the  war  of  king  Chosroes 
against  the  Byzantine  emperor  Heraclius,  when  Syria  and 
Palestine  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  successful  Persians, 
the  latter  were  everywhere  welcomed  and  assisted  by  the 
Jews,  who  entered  Jerusalem  with  the  conquerors  and 
wreaked  fearful  vengeance  on  the  inhabitants  of  this 
Christianized  city  (614).  But  the  Jews  were  not  long  to 
enjoy  their  triumph.  Fourteen  years  afterwards,  the  Per- 
sians were  deprived   of   their   conquests,    and   the  Jews 


THE   TALMUDIC    AGE  55 

were  again  forbidden  to  appear  even  in  the  vicinity  of 
their  former  capital. 

Of  more  lasting  consequence  was  the  intellectual  ac- 
tivity of  which  the  Babylonian  Jews  could  boast.  Al- 
though on  the  irruption  of  the  Neo-Persians,  who  brought 
with  them  a  fanatical  zeal  for  their  Zoroastrian,  or  Fire- 
worshipping,  religion,  the  Jews  suffered  at  times  griev- 
ously under  the  creed  of  their  new  masters,  the  Rabbinical 
colleges  continued  to  flourish.  It  was  Rab  Ashi,  a  most 
famous  head  of  the  college  of  Sura,  who,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  century,  set  about  to  collect  the  tra- 
ditions and  teachings  of  the  Babylonian  Academies,  and  his 
great  work,  resulting  in  the  Babylonian  Talmud,  was 
continued  under  his  successors  and  concluded  by  Rabina 
(died  499).  With  Rabina  ended  the  long  line  of 
Amoraim  (who,  by  the  Gemara,  completed  the  work  of 
their  predecessors,  the  Tannaim,  the  sages  of  the  Mish- 
nah),  and  they  were  succeeded  by  the  Saboraim,  who 
put  the  finishing  touches  to  the  Babylonian  Talmud.  It 
was  high  time  for  the  Jewish  intellectual  treasures  to  have 
been  brought  under  safe  custody,  for  the  Babylonian  Jews 
in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century  experienced  severe  re- 
ligious persecutions,  in  the  course  of  which  a  Prince  of 
the  Captivity  was  publicly  hanged  (470).  Fifty  years 
after,  an  attempt  by  another  Prince,  Mar  Zutra,  to  throw 
off  the  yoke  of  Persia,  ended  with  his  crucifixion.  Never- 
theless, the  Babylonian  Jews  maintained  considerable  in- 
tellectual vigour  and  political  importance  even  under  the 
Arab  conquerors  of  Persia  (642),  and  were  yet  to  give 
another  impetus  to  the  development  of  the  Jewish  mind. 

^  7.  Under  the  Crescent. — While  the  various 
Christian  Churches  were  engaged  in  mutual  warfare, 
there  arose  on  their  borders  an  enemy  who  swept  away 
some  of  the  most  important  and  extensive  tracts  of  Chris- 
tendom. Mohammedanism,  the  greatest  opponent  by  which 
Christianity  has  ever  been  faced,  also  owes  its  existence 
to  Judaism,    At  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  Moham- 


56  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

med,  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  centurv',  there  was 
a  large  Jewish  population  in  various  parts  of  Arabia,  in- 
cluding the  neighbourhood  of  Medina,  where  a  number 
of  independent  and  powerful  Jewish  tribes  had  long  ago 
established  themselves.  Mohammed,  who  had  come  into 
contact  with  Judaism  and  Christianity  both  in  Arabia 
and  in  his  travels  in  Syria,  was  evidently  more  attracted 
by  the  older  monotheistic  faith.  His  list  of  true  prophets 
whom  he  honoured  as  his  predecessors  were  all  Jews;  his 
monotheism  was  Jewish,  in  direct  opposition  to  the  Trini- 
tarian conception  of  Christianity,  and  he  only  claimed  to 
have  restored  the  religion  of  Abraham,  the  father  of  all 
the  faithful,  while  many  of  the  ideas  and  doctrines  of 
Islam  and  various  institutions  and  practices  he  established 
were  directly  borrowed  from  the  Jews.  He  at  first  even 
Intended  to  make  Jerusalem  the  sacred  centre  of  the  new 
religion,  and  Jerusalem  is  still  known  among  the  Moslem 
as  Al  Kuds,  the  Hol3^  If  the  irritating  opposition  he 
received  from  the  Arabian  Jews,  whose  co-operation  he 
was  anxious  to  receive,  led  Mohammed  to  attack  them 
until  they  were  driven  out  from  the  Peninsula,  yet  the 
extraordinary  spread  of  his  faith  from  the  Caucasus  to 
the  Pyrenees  found  everywhere  Jews  anxious  to  escape 
from  the.  unbearable  yoke  of  the  Christian,  and  willing 
not  only  to  submit  to  any  tolerably  indulgent  master  but 
also  to  help  him  in  every  possible  way. 

Hence  there  grew  up  a  certain  sympathy  between  the 
oldest  and  the  youngest  monotheistic  religion,  so  similar 
in  many  of  their  beliefs  and  observances,  and  this  reacted 
most  favourably  on  the  development  of  Judaism.  The 
Jews,  touched  by  the  elan  and  vivifying  spirit  which  had 
taken  hold  of  Islam  In  the  first  centuries  of  its  growth, 
underwent  a  process  of  rejuvenation  in  all  aspects  of 
life  and  thought. 

§  8.  In  Western  Europe. — While  the  East  formed 
the  centre  of  the  activities  and  troubles  of  the  Jews,  there 
grew  up  in  the  far  West  of  Europe  those  communities 


THE  TALMUDIC  AGE  57 

which  were  to  eclipse  the  achievements  and  sufferings  of 
their  brethren  under  Byzantine  and  Persian  rule.  The 
Jews  had  settled  in  Rome  even  before  the  times  of  the 
Maccabees,  and,  by  immigration  and  conversion,  new 
colonies  gradually  developed  in  the  important  centres  in 
Italy,  Greece,  Gaul,  Germany,  Spain.  On  account  of  their 
proselytism,  the  Jews  in  Rome  were  not  looked  upon 
favourably,  and  the  first  religious  persecution  in  the  West 
ensued  on  that  account  under  Tiberius.  Later  on,  how- 
ever, during  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians  in  the  outly- 
ing European  portions  of  the  empire  where  Jews  were 
to  be  found,  they  enjoyed  such  protection  as  their  Roman 
citizenship  (which  they  had  received  under  the  emperor 
Caracalla  [212]),  and  their  inolTensiveness  and  adaptable 
usefulness  could  give  them.  The  Jews,  largely  as  a  mi- 
gratory element  and  not  belonging  to  the  dominant  Chris- 
tian religion,  suffered  less  than  the  native  population  from 
the  fury  of  the  barbarians,  as  they  swept  over  the  country 
devastating  everything  that  came  in  their  way.  But  the 
situation  of  the  Jews  changed  materially  with  the  spread 
of  Christianity  among  the  rude  invaders.  In  the  West- 
ern Roman  empire  a  law  of  Theodosius  II  (439)  de- 
prived the  Jews  entirely  of  the  rights  they  had  possessed, 
and  reduced  them  to  a  state  of  an  oppressed  and  inferior 
order.  The  emphatic  confirmations  and  amplifications 
which  this  received  at  the  hands  of  the  Church  Councils 
and  influential  Christian  ecclesiastics  became  a  fatal  legacy 
which  the  barbarians  inherited  with  the  civilization  and 
religion  of  imperial  Rome,  and  proved  the  origin  of  the 
endless  woe  which  was  to  overtake  the  Jews  of  Europe  for 
about  fifteen  long  and  dreary  centuries. 

The  early  history  of  the  Jews  in  Western  Europe  un- 
der Christian  rule  is  outlined  by  the  discussions  and  reso- 
lutions of  the  Church  Councils  which  dictated  the  policy 
of  the  secular  Christian  rulers.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
the  Arians,  who  were  not  swayed  by  the  Catholic  Church 
Councils,   treated   the  Jews  with  considerable  liberalitv, 


58  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

perhaps  on  account  of  the  monotheistic  bonds  between 
both  sides.  The  Arian  Theodoric,  the  Gothic  king  of  Italy, 
proved  a  powerful  protector  of  the  Jews,  and  took  ener- 
getic measures  against  the  highest  Christian  authorities, 
lay  and  clerical,  who  had  wantonly  attacked  the  Jews 
in  Rome,  Milan  and  Genoa.  The  Jews  repaid  by  the 
heroic  resistance  they  offered  in  the  defence  of  Naples 
against  the  Byzantine  general  Belisarius  (536).  The 
Jews  likewise  fared  well  under  the  barbarian  Franks, 
even  sometime  after  their  adoption  of  Christianity,  but 
this  was  changed  by  the  violence  of  kings  Childebert  and 
Chilperic,  and  the  zeal  of  the  bishops  in  their  eagerness  to 
advance  the  cause  of  Christ  among  the  obdurate  Jews. 
The  Jews  found,  however,  in  Pope  Gregory  the  Great 
a  pontiff  who  had  a  higher  conception  of  the  dignity  md 
reasonableness  of  Christianity,  and,  although  most 
anxious  to  bring  about  their  conversion,  his  authority 
was  exercised  in  favour  of  the  existing,  though  meagre, 
rights  of  the  Jews.  It  was  in  Spain,  where  Jewish  com- 
munities were  already  established  at  the  time  of  Paul, 
that  they  experienced  most  severely  the  rigours  of  Chris- 
tian legislation.  The  Visigothic  kings  of  Spain  and  the 
Spanish  Church  Councils  seemed,  in  their  frantic  efforts 
for  the  conversion  of  the  Jews,  to  have  been  continually 
possessed  of  violent  paroxysms  which  expressed  themselves 
in  the  most  vigorous  measures  against  the  Jews,  whether 
baptized  or  unbaptized.  The  converted  Jews  were  justly 
suspected  of  being  false  to  their  enforced  Christian  pro- 
fessions, and  the  severest  punishments,  among  which  death 
became  a  common  penalty,  were  meted  out  to  those 
discovered  to  be  maintaining  in  the  slightest  way  their 
Jewish  connections  or  sympathies.  It  is  characteristic 
of  the  manner  in  which  these  conversions  were  being 
effected  and  supervised  that  a  number  of  Jews  who  had 
turned  Christian  begged  at  least  not  to  be  forced  to  eat 
pork.  The  Jews,  thus  ruthlessly  hunted  about,  encour- 
aged and  hailed  with  joy  the  invasion  of  the  Moslem 


THE  TALMUDIC  AGE  59 

conquerors  (711),  who,  on  their  arrival,  found  in  the 
Jev\s  valuable  allies,  into  whose  hands  they  placed  the 
captured  cities  as  they  proceeded  to  futher  conquests.  In 
Germany  the  condition  of  the  Jews  was  subjected  to 
the  same  evolution:  while  the  Jews  were  at  first  living  in 
amity  with  their  barbarian  neighbours,  the  increasing  in- 
fluence of  the  Church  was  exerted  to  shut  them  out  from 
intercourse  with  the  faithful. 

A  time  very  favourable  to  the  Jews  was  the  rule  of  the 
Carlovingians.  Charlemagne  employed  Jewish  merchants 
in  his  service,  and  one  of  them,  named  Isaac,  was  sent  by 
him  with  an  embassy  to  the  khalif  Harun  al  Rashid 
(797)  ;  he  is  even  said  to  have  interested  himself  in  the  in- 
tellectual advancement  of  his  Jewish  subjects.  This  en- 
lightened policy  was  pursued  also  by  Charlemagne's  suc- 
cessor, Louis  le  Debonnaire.  The  Jews  rose  to  great  influ- 
ence under  this  monarch,  whose  confidential  adviser  was 
his  Jewish  physician  Zedekiah.  From  the  diatribes  direct- 
ed against  them  by  Agobard,  archbishop  of  Lyons,  it  would 
appear  that  the  Jews  had  attained  a  position  of  importance 
which  might  well  arouse  the  jealousy  of  a  medieval 
churchman.  In  his  own  diocese,  the  Jews  occupied  the 
best  quarter  of  the  city  of  Lyons,  just  as  one  of  the  two 
mayors  of  Narbonne  was  always  a  Jew.  It  was  not  only 
their  wealth,  profitable  to  the  king  as  well  as  to  them- 
selves, which  gave  them  this  social  standing,  but  the  bishop 
complains  that  even  the  Synagogue  fared  better  than  the 
Church,  inasmuch  as  many  Christians  went  to  hear  the 
Jewish  preachers,  who  evidently  must  have  delivered  their 
discourses  in  the  French  language.  That  Agobard's  writ- 
ings and  strenuous  personal  efforts  had  no  immediate  effect 
is  in  itself  an  indication  «f  the  strength  of  the  Jewish  posi- 
tion at  the  time.  But  the  Jews  had  good  cause  to  remember 
the  warning  of  their  psalmist  not  to  trust  in  princes,  who 
are,  after  all,  only  sons  of  men.  With  other  kings  and 
changing  times,  the  dignitaries  of  the  Church  had  their 
way  at  last.    The  crusades  in  the  eleventh  century  brought 


6o  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

out  to  the  full  the  artificially  stimulated  fanaticism  of  the 
populace  against  the  first  infidels  on  their  way,  which  was 
traced  by  a  trail  of  Jewish  blood. 

§  9.  Social  and  Economic  Conditions. — The 
Babylonian  Jews  under  Parthian  and  Persian  rule,  and 
then  under  the  dominion  of  the  khalifs,  lived  under  nor- 
mal conditions  which  permitted  them  to  carry  on  the  oc- 
cupations of  a  well-ordered  community.  The  self-gov- 
erning powers  of  the  Prince  of  the  Captivity,  who,  in 
eflFect,  was  one  of  the  vassal  rulers  of  the  country  and 
maintained  a  court  and  retinue  of  some  magnificence,  gave 
him  and  his  Jewish  subjects  a  dignified  political  standing, 
while  the  intellectual  activity  of  the  Jews  must  have 
raised  them  far  above  the  level  of  their  neighbours.  In 
Arabia,  up  till  the  rise  of  Islam,  the  Jews  had  lived  as 
independent  tribes,  with  the  free,  martial  and  marauding 
spirit  of  the  other  sons  of  the  desert,  from  whom  they 
were  only  distinguished  by  a  superiority  due  to  their  re- 
ligious traditions.  It  was  not  so  under  Byzantine  and 
Roman  rule,  with  their  spreading  influences  on  the  lives 
and  mental  outlook  of  the  barbarians.  The  exclusion  of 
the  Jews  from  the  army  and  the  offices  of  state  placed 
them  in  a  position  of  civil  exclusiveness  and  inferiority, 
while  the  Church  branded  them  as  the  people  rejected  by 
God  for  the  crucifixion  of  the  Saviour  of  mankind.  The 
Jews,  torn  out  by  the  r'^ots  from  their  ancestral  soil,  and 
in  other  parts  of  the  empire  subjected  to  the  turbulence 
and  fanaticism  of  people  and  priests,  became  unsettled  in 
their  mode  of  life.  Wars  and  insurrections  had  played 
havoc  with  the  economic  condition  of  the  Jews,  and  the 
sale  of  enormously  large  numbers  of  Jewish  slaves,  who 
were  mostly  ransomed  by  their  happier  co-religionists,  filled 
the  empire  with  a  Jewish  proletariat  which  was  obliged 
to  seek  its  livelihood  in  the  meanest  occupations,  among 
which  sooth-saying  and  other  charlatanic  devices  to 
gull  the  ever-credulous  populace  seem  to  have  been  of  a 
favourite  and  lucrative  kind.    Yet  we  find  the  Jews  own- 


THE  TALMUDIC  AGE  6l 

ing  and  tilling  the  land  in  all  parts  and  in  considerable 
numbers.  The  Church  Council  of  Elvira,  Spain  (303), 
found  it  advisable  to  prohibit  the  blessing  of  the  soil  by 
Jews,  lest  the  Christian  prayers  should  prove  unavailing. 
More  reasonably,  tlie  Church  Councils  later  on  continu- 
ally interfered  with  the  sale  of  Christian  slaves  to  Jews, 
and  endeavoured  that  no  Christian  should  either  come 
under  Jewish  masters  or  that  Jews  should  not  proselytize 
among  their  Christian,  or  even  pagan,  slaves.  The  vast 
upheavals  which  were  brought  about  by  the  invasion  of 
the  barbarians,  led  to  wholesale  massacres,  and,  as  a  more 
merciful  and  more  profitable  measure,  to  the  sale  of  large 
parts  of  the  population  as  slaves.  In  this  traffic  the  mo- 
bile Jews  began  to  take  the  leading  share,  and  we  find 
them  spread  far  and  wide,  from  England  and  Bohemia 
to  Persia  and  North  Africa,  in  order  to  dispose  of  the 
victims  of  barbarian  warfare.  In  general,  however,  the 
Jew^s  occupied  themselves  with  industry  and  trade,  and 
barter,  developed  into  commerce,  became  a  very  important 
factor  and  civilizing  influence  amidst  a  population  who 
were  either  attached  to  the  soil  as  serfs  or  sought  glory 
and  profit  in  the  bloody  pursuit  of  arms.  In  their  com- 
mercial undertakings,  the  Jews  were  favoured  by  their 
comparatively  high  intellectual  standard,  and  by  the 
world-wide  connections  and  community  of  sentiment  and 
interests  which  made  all  Jews  members  of  one  family. 
When  Mohammedanism  took  possession  of  the  East,  the 
Jews  acted  as  the  only  possible  intermediaries  between 
Moslem  and  Christian  lands,  and  this  commercial  ac- 
tivity had  assumed  by  the  tenth  century  most  extraordi- 
nary proportions.  All  over  inhabited  Europe,  South- 
western Asia  and  Northern  Africa,  Jewish  merchants 
dealt  with  the  needs  and  luxuries  of  civilization.  Jewish 
captains  navigated  Jewish  mercantile  vessels  which  sailed 
on  the  waves  of  the  Mediterranean.  In  the  same  way, 
the  cosmopolitan  Jews  became  the  chief  money-changers 
of  the  time. 


62  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

The  crusades,  however,  altered  this  state  of  things. 
By  coming  into  personal  touch  with  the  East,  the  Chris- 
tians entered  into  competition  with  the  Jews,  and  by  sub- 
sequent legislation  were  able  to  restrict  the  enterprise 
of  their  Jewish  rivals.  The  trade  guilds,  which  then  be- 
gan to  be  formed  under  ecclesiastical  auspices,  and  from 
which  Jews  were  naturally  excluded,  gave  the  Christian 
merchant  ample  scope  and  security  to  oust  the  Jewish  com- 
petitor. Still  it  seemed  as  if  the  life  of  the  Jews  in 
Christian  Europe,  made  intolerable  by  religious  legisla- 
tion and  persecution,  was  not  to  be  made  entirely  im- 
possible by  all  the  avenues  to  the  means  of  livelihood 
being  closed  against  them.  For,  by  a  strange  misinter- 
pretation of  an  injunction  by  Jesus,  "Lend,  never  de- 
spairing" (Luke  vi.  35),  the  Church  stringently  forbade 
the  lending  of  money  on  interest.  As  such  a  measure 
would  have  paralyzed  the  ordinary  course  of  life,  not  to 
speak  of  trade  and  enterprise,  and  as,  furthermore,  the 
salvation  of  the  unbelieving  Jews  was  in  any  case  not 
considered  in  the  pious  enactments  intended  to  protect 
Christian  souls,  the  Jews  received  the  very  valuable,  but 
two-edged,  monopoly  of  money-lending.  With  this,  how- 
ever, the  Jews  entered  into  the  darkest  misery  which 
awaited  them  in  the  Dark  Ages,  when  only  a  fervent 
attachment  to  their  faith  and  an  unquenchable  hope  for 
happier  times  saved  them  from  total  extinction. 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Golden  Age  of  Judaism 

§  I.  The  Geonim. — The  invasion  of  Persia  by  the 
Arabs,  which  brought  the  Jews  there  under  new  and  more 
tolerant  masters,  seems  to  have  been  assisted  by  Bostonai,  a 
Prince  of  the  Captivity,  on  whom,  among  other  distinc- 
tions, the  Arab  conqueror  bestowed  as  wife  a  daughter  of 
the  Persian  king  Chosroes  II.  The  dignity  of  Prince  of  the 
Captivity  was  thus  continued,  while  the  principals  of  the 
colleges  of  Sura  and  Pumpedita  rose  to  new  fame  under 
the  title  of  Geonim  (singular,  Gaon  [Illustrious]).  Al- 
ready before  the  conquest,  the  Babylonian  Talmud  had 
been  settled,  and  had  become  a  subject  of  devoted  and 
widespread  study.  The  colleges  had  been  repeatedly 
closed  and  reopened  in  the  troublous  times  that  marked 
the  end  of  Persian  rule,  but  the  creation  of  the  khali- 
phate  with  its  wide  dominion  and  influence,  and  the 
proximity  of  the  Babylonian  Jews  to  the  centre  of  the 
Mohammedan  empire,  preserved  for  the  Princes  of  the 
Exile  and,  even  more  so,  for  the  Geonim,  the  hegemony 
so  long  enjoyed  by  the  Babylonians  among  the  Jews  of 
the  Dispersion,  who  recognized  those  dignitaries  as  the 
highest  authorities  in  Judaism  and  supported  the  colleges 
by  liberal  contributions.  The  adoption  of  the  kindred 
Arabic  language  as  the  vernacular  of  the  Jews  under 
Moslem  rule,  served  as  a  still  further  bond  between  the 
communities  which  extended  and  multiplied  with  the  ever 
widening  expansion  of  Islam  in  Asia,  North  Africa  and 
the  Iberian  peninsula. 

63 


64  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

If  the  Prince  of  the  Captivity  possessed  the  social  dis- 
tinction of  being  the  recognized  chief  of  his  people,  among 
whom  he  enjoyed  the  still  greater  prestige  of  a  scion  of  the 
royal  house  of  David,  the  Geonim  were  invested  with  the 
judicial  functions  which  formerly  belonged  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Sanhedrin  and  with  a  spiritual  authority 
which  was  universally  acknowledged.  From  France  to 
India,  the  Geonim  were  consulted  on  questions  of  religion 
and  law — two  cognate  subjects — and  twice  a  year,  in  the 
months  of  Adar  and  Elul  (about  March  and  September), 
there  was  held  a  conference,  called  Kallah,  where  scholars 
from  all  parts  discussed  a  certain  specified  treatise  of  the 
Talmud,  as  well  as  the  specific  points  which  awaited  con- 
sideration and  decision.  But  these  outward  glories  of  the 
Jewish  people  were  also  to  fall  victims  to  the  ravages 
of  time.  Owing  to  internal  neglect  and  decay,  and  the 
growing  fanaticism  of  the  Mohammedans,  the  Gaonate 
(which  had  continued  its  functions  for  450  years),  as 
well  as  the  dignity  of  Prince  of  the  Captivity  (which 
had  existed  for  about  700  years),  expired  together  in 
the  person  of  Hezekiah,  of  Pumpedita,  in  the  year  1040. 
Towards  the  end  there  had  appeared  one  of  the  most 
famous  of  the  Geonim,  Sherira,  to  whom  we  owe  our 
knowledge  of  Jewish  history  from  the  close  of  the  Tal- 
mud to  his  own  day,  as  well  as  Hai,  an  independent 
thinker,  but  they  were  far  outshone  by  Saadia  (born  in 
Eg5T)t  892,  died  at  Sur  942),  truly  one  of  the  lights  of 
the  Exile.  Saadia  rendered  lasting  service  to  Judaism 
by  the  creation  of  a  philosophical  and  scientific  basis  for 
the  Talmudical  conception  of  the  religion.  Saadia  was 
the  first  to  present  it  systematically  in  accordance  with 
the  highest  culture  of  the  time.  His  Arabic  translation 
of  the  Bible  was  a  work  of  epoch-making  importance  to 
his  co-religionists,  who  thereby  also  became  sharers  of  the 
rich  and  fruitful  Mohammedan  civilization.  A  work  of 
much  value,  and  even  greater  interest,  was  his  Faith  and 
Dogmas    ("Emunoth    Vedeoth"),    which    for    the   first 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  JUDAISM  65 

time  set  out  the  principles  and  ideas  of  Talmudical  Ju- 
daism from  a  philosophical  point  of  view.  Endowed 
with  a  penetrating  mind  and  deep  religious  feeling,  a 
vast  capacity  for  work  and  a  comprehensive  grasp  of  the 
subjects  dealt  with  by  him,  Saadia  Gaon  touched  and 
adorned  all  aspects  of  Jewish  thought,  and  laid  the  seed 
for  its  future  vitality  and  development. 

§  2.  Karaistn. — The  political  and  intellectual  up- 
heavals which  ensued  on  the  Moslem  conquests,  and  in 
which  the  Babylonian  Jews  participated  either  actively 
or  passively,  led,  among  other  things,  to  a  certain  unset- 
tlement  of  the  mind  among  them.  The  traditions  em- 
bodied in  the  Talmud  which  had  hitherto  held  undisputed 
sway,  were  now^,  seriously  or  frivolously,  called  into  ques- 
tion. The  Jews  of  Arabia,  who  had  been  expelled  from 
the  Peninsula  by  the  Moslem  onslaught  and  had  settled 
in  Syria  and  Babylonia,  were  groups  almost  ignorant  of 
Rabbinical  tradition,  and,  as  free  sons  of  the  desert,  per- 
haps little  amenable  to  the  bookish  discipline  of  the  Tal- 
mudists.  But  while  such  isolated  sets  of  opinion  as  had 
been  formed  could  make  little  headway  against  the  vener- 
able authority  of  the  Geonim  and  the  Princes  of  the 
Exile,  an  effective  opposition  was  offered  by  one  high  in 
scholarly  and  social  standing,  and  endowed  with  the  nec- 
essary energy  to  unite  the  diverse  anti-traditionist  ele- 
ments. Such  a  man  was  Anan  ben  David  (died  about 
800).  He  was  the  legitimate  successor  to  the  office  of 
Prince  of  the  Captivity,  which  had  become  vacant  in 
762,  but,  whether  it  was  on  account  of  expressed  heretical 
opinions  or  because  of  his  character,  the  Jewish  author- 
ities passed  him  over  in  favour  of  his  younger  brother. 
Anan  did  not  allow  this  without  a  determined  struggle. 
He  was  indeed  thrown  into  prison  and  was  to  have  been 
executed  by  the  government,  but  he  succeeded  in  escap- 
ing, and  organized  a  systematic  attack  on  the  Gaonate, 
and  on  the  Talmudical  form  of  Judaism  of  which  it  was 
the  highest  representative.     Discarding  the  traditions  of 


66  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

the  Rabbis  and  their  schools,  he  went  back  to  the  original 
sources  of  the  Bible  and  formulated  his  own  interpreta- 
tions and  amplifications  of  the  ritualistic  and  legal  laws 
of  the  Torah  of  Moses.  It  cannot,  however,  be  said  that 
Anan  succeeded  in  his  task  better  than  the  Talmudists, 
and  personal  hatred  of  them  seems  to  have  proved  a  bad 
counsellor.  Nor  can  Anan  be  credited  with  having  been 
either  a  bold  reformer  or  original  thinker.  He  kept  his 
eyes  close  to  the  Talmudical  laws  with  the  object  of 
evading  or  superseding  them  by  regulations  of  his  own. 
He  thus  produced  a  laborious  code  which  lacked  the  or- 
derly evolution  and  the  critical  deliberation  and  experi- 
ence of  numerous  generations.  Hence,  instead  of  lighten- 
ing the  burden  of  Talmudical  legislation  or  unravelling 
its  complexities,  he  added  to  it  or  made  it  more  involved. 
With  precipitation  and  without  the  test  of  practical  con- 
sideration, Anan  enforced  many  interpretations  of  Jewish 
law  which  were  either  so  extravagant  or  untenable  that 
his  immediate  followers  abolished  or  changed  them  with- 
out scruple.  In  certain  instances,  however,  such  as  his 
view  that  the  prohibition  to  kindle  a  fire  on  the  Sabbath 
(Exodus  XXXV.  3)  obliged  the  Israelite  to  sit  in  total 
darkness  during  Friday  night  and  to  have  no  warm  food 
during  the  Sabbath  day  (which  Anan  seems  to  have  re- 
garded something  like  a  day  of  penance,  when  one  was 
hardly  to  be  allowed  to  leave  the  house  if  situated  among 
Gentiles),  Anan's  regulations  remained  valid  for  all  time. 
If  in  subsequent  ages  Christian  theologians  hailed  the  fol- 
lowers of  Anan  as  the  Protestants  of  Judaism,  the  anal- 
ogy can  only  be  brought  out  in  so  far  that  Anan  might  be 
considered  as  a  rebel  against  the  authority  of  the  Talmud, 
though  he  was  only  a  reformer  of  mediocre  mind  who 
threw  o&  the  Catholic  traditions  and  the  canon  law  of 
the  Synagogue  in  order  to  reconstruct  them  in  accordance 
with  his  personal  notions. 

We  must,  however,  give  credit  to  the  early  followers  of 
Anan,  who  came  to  be  called  Karaim,  Karaites   (from 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  JUDAISM  67 

karah,  to  read  [the  written  Bible]),  that,  like  all  dis- 
senters, they  disturbed  the  intellectual  lethargy  which 
had  taken  possession  of  the  Jews  after  the  close  of  the 
Talmud — in  the  compilation  of  which  they  had,  so  to 
speak,  exhausted  themselves — and  they  also  led  them  back 
to  the  invigorating  and  inspiring  study  of  the  Bible, 
which  had  become  neglected  in  the  absorbing  devotion  to 
tradition.  The  Karaites,  who  seceded  from  the  so-called 
Rabbanites,  or  Talmudical  Jews,  produced  later  on  a 
number  of  men  who  gave  a  scientific  basis  to  the  tenets 
of  the  sect  and  to  its  opposition  to  their  Rabbinical  breth- 
ren. The  latter  were,  however,  fortunate  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Gaon  Saadia,  who  so  far  overshadowed  their 
Karaite  antagonists  that  they  have  since  then  been  moving 
as  in  a  magic  circle  around  the  arguments  he  adduced 
against  them.  The  progress  which  Karaism  made  all  over 
the  East,  from  Constantinople  to  Spain,  was  arrested  after 
a  few  centuries,  and  thereby  afforded  a  remarkable  testi- 
mony to  the  vitality  inherent  in  traditional  Judaism. 
The  sense  of  initiative  which  had  brought  the  Karaites 
into  being,  their  early  boldness  and  originality  of  con- 
ception, such  as  it  was,  waned  with  the  advance  of  time. 
Karaism  shrank  into  a  petrified  sect,  whose  adherents, 
to  the  number  of  about  12,000,  are  now  mostly  to  be 
found  in  Southern  Russia,  while  several  small  communi- 
ties in  Turkey  and  Egypt  still  continue  their  obscure 
existence. 

§  3.  The  Chazars. — The  Jewish  forces  in  Babylonia 
had  been  fatally  weakened  by  the  decay  and  final  extinc- 
tion of  the  venerable  and  universally  revered  dignities  of 
the  Prince  of  the  Captivity  and  the  Gaonate;  the  Karaites 
had  created  the  first  and  only  irreparable  schism  in  the 
body  of  Israel;  the  once  tolerant  and  enlightened  khaliphs 
had  begun  to  persecute  the  unbelieving  Jews  and  Chris- 
tians with  equal  impartiality;  even  the  Byzantine  em- 
peror Leo  the  Isaurian  being  accused  of  "execrable" 
Judaizing  tendencies  on   account  of  his   iconoclastic  ac- 


68  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

tivities,  cleared  himself  of  all  suspicion  by  subjecting  the 
Jews  to  cruel  persecution — yet  these  were  only  the  labours 
preceding  the  birth  of  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  fruit- 
ful epochs  of  Jewish  history.  From  widely  different 
quarters,  at  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  and  the  Gates  of 
Hercules,  on  the  banks  of  the  Volga  and  of  the  Guadal- 
quivir, Judaism  received  unexpected  accessions  of  strength, 
while  on  the  Rhine  also  the  old  Jewish  tree  blossomed 
out  with  renewed  splendour. 

If  Judaism  was  hard  pressed  by  Roman,  Persian  or 
Arab,  many  of  its  members  spread  beyond  their  influence. 
The  international  relations  of  Jewish  commerce  brought 
a  number  of  Jews  as  far  as  India,  and,  in  the  middle  of 
the  eighth  century,  Joseph  Rabban  obtained  a  charter  from 
the  king  of  Cochin  granting  autonomous  rights  to  a 
Jewish  settlement  there  which  has  survived  to  the  present 
day.  Of  greater  consequence  was  the  migration  of  Jews 
along  the  trade-routes  of  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Volga. 
In  this  region  lived  the  Chazars,  a  people  of  Tartar  race, 
whose  chagan,  Bulan,  together  with  his  nobles,  adopted 
the  Jewish  religion.  From  the  scanty  records  that  have 
been  preserved  of  this  Jewish  kingdom  of  the  Chazars, 
which  subsisted  for  a  period  of  about  250  years,  it  ap- 
pears that  ft  had  its  capital,  Atel,  near  the  present  As- 
trachan,  on  the  Volga,  while  the  Chazarian  territory 
stretched  all  over  the  south  of  Russia.  The  incursions 
of  the  Chazars  were  so  dreaded  by  the  Persians  that  they 
built  a  great  wall  across  the  Caucasus  to  keep  them 
away,  while  imperial  Byzantium  had  to  buy  off  their 
hostility  by  ill-disguised  payments,  and  the  Russian  dukes 
of  Kiev  were  forced  to  recognize  the  authority  of  the 
Jewish  chagans  of  the  Chazars  by  a  fixed  tribute.  The 
country  of  the  Jewish  Chazars  was  governed  in  a  spirit 
of  exceptional  tolerance,  so  that,  for  instance,  the  supreme 
court  of  justice  was  composed  of  two  Jews,  two  Chris- 
tians, two  Mohammedans,  and  one  pagan  to  represent  the 
Russians  and  Bulgars.     The  chagan  Obadiah,  the  sue- 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  JUDAISM  69 

cesser  of  Bulan,  invited  a  number  of  Jewish  teachers  into 
his  country,  to  instruct  tlie  people  in  the  tenets  of  Ju- 
daism, and  it  was  only  the  difficulties  of  distance  and 
travel  which  kept  this  Jewish  state  from  the  general 
knowledge  of  the  Jews.  It  w^as  through  ambassadors  from 
Byzantium  that  Chasdai  ibn  Shaprut,  a  Jewish  states- 
man at  the  court  of  Cordova  in  the  middle  of  the  tenth 
century,  became  acquainted  with  the  fact  of  their  ex- 
istence, and  it  is  to  an  extant  correspondence  he  initiated 
with  the  chagan  Joseph  that  we  are  indebted  for  our 
information  regarding  the  Jewish  Chazars.  They  main- 
tained their  power  until  the  year  969,  when  Sviatoslav, 
duke  of  Kiev,  conquered  the  capital  and  territory  of  the 
Chazars.  Many  of  them  withdrew^  to  the  Crimea,  which 
also  became  known  as  Chazaria,  but  their  political  power 
had  gone,  and  they  were  lost  in  the  mass  of  Jews  and 
Karaites  who  had  settled  there  and  in  South-Eastern 
Europe  generally. 

§  4.  The  Spanish  Epoch. — It  is  a  pregnant  indica- 
tion of  the  vitality  of  the  Jewish  people  that,  at  repeated 
periods  in  history,  after  adverse  circumstances  seemed  to 
have  entirely  overwhelmed  it,  it  rose  superior  to  all  ob- 
stacles, and  played  again  an  important  part  in  the  affairs 
of  the  world.  A  thousand  years  after  the  dissolution  of 
the  Jewish  national  existence,  when  the  Roman  world- 
empire  with  its  mighty  emperors  had  already  become  mere 
faint  memories;  when  Judaism  had  given  birth  to  a  world- 
conquering  religion,  the  head  of  which  had  usurped  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars;  when  Christianity  itself  had  been 
expelled  from  its  most  ancient  and  fairest  possessions,  and 
the  dioceses  of  Chrysostom,  Cyril  and  Augustine  were 
peopled  and  ruled  by  the  circumcised  followers  of  Mo- 
hammed, Judaism  renewed  its  youth  and  led  the  highest 
culture  of  the  age.  There  cannot  indeed  be  any  greater 
tribute  to  the  Jewish  mind  than  the  fact  that,  though  very 
few  in  numbers,  oppressed  and  despised,  they  should  have 
surpassed  in  intellectual  eminence  all  the  young  and  vig- 


70  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

orous  nations  of  Europe,  who  were  then  occupying  with 
the  din  of  their  arms  the  attention  of  the  world. 

The  magnificent  epoch  of  Hispano-Jewish  history  sig- 
nalized over  a  thousand  years  ago  the  definite  entry  of  the 
Jews  and  Judaism  into  European  civilization — not  as  it 
was  then,  but  as  it  was  to  become  in  later  days.  In  the 
darkest  period  of  that  civilization  the  Jews  rose  to  view 
as  the  brightest  star.  If  we  take  into  account  that,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  short  glimpses  of  liberty  and  hon- 
our, the  Jews  were  subjected  to  massacre,  exile,  misery 
and  degradation,  the  horror  and  extent  of  which  are  in- 
conceivable to  the  modern  mind,  their  achievements  in  all 
fields  of  human  thought  can  only  be  regarded  with  the 
same  admiration  as  that  which  we  are  wont  to  accord 
to  the  people  who  gave  the  Bible  to  the  world.  W. 
E.  H.  Lecky  well  set  out  these  considerations  when,  re- 
ferring to  the  trials  and  triumphs  of  the  Jews,  he  said, 
"The  heroism  of  the  defenders  of  every  other  creed  fades 
into  insignificance  before  this  martyr  people,  who  for 
thirteen  centuries  confronted  all  the  evils  that  the  fiercest 
fanaticism  could  devise,  and  the  infliction  of  the  most 
hideous  sufferings,  rather  than  abandon  their  faith.  .  .  . 
But  above  all  this  the  genius  of  that  wonderful  people 
rose  supreme.  While  those  around  them  were  grovelling 
in  the  darkness  of  besotted  ignorance;  while  juggling 
miracles  and  lying  relics  were  the  themes  on  which  almost 
all  Europe  was  expatiating;  while  the  intellect  of  Chris- 
tendom, enthralled  by  countless  superstitions,  had  sunk 
into  a  deadly  torpor,  in  which  all  love  of  inquiry  and  all 
search  for  truth  were  abandoned,  the  Jews  were  still  pur- 
suing the  path  of  knowledge,  amassing  learning  and  stim- 
ulating progress  with  the  same  unflinching  constancy  that 
they  manifested  in  their  faith.  They  were  the  most  skil- 
ful physicians,  the  ablest  financiers,  and  among  the  most 
profound  philosophers;  while  they  were  only  second  to 
the  Moors  in  the  cultivation  of  natural  science.  They 
were  also  the  chief  interpreters  to  Western  Europe  of 


THE    GOLDEN    AGE    OF  JUDAISM  71 

Arabian  learning."  (History  of  Rationalism,  I,  p.  282.) 
§  5.  Hispano-Jewish  Culture. — The  first  incident 
in  the  course  of  events  which  was  to  lead  to  the  transfer 
of  the  centre  of  Judaism  from  Babylonia  to  Spain  was  the 
arrival  in  Cordova  of  a  captive,  Moses  ben  Enoch,  who 
had  been  ransomed  by  his  brethrcn-in-faith.  Moses  ben 
Enoch  had  set  out  with  three  other  legates  from  Sura  in 
order  to  collect  contribution  for  the  college  there,  but 
they  were  all  captured  by  pirates  and  sold  into  various 
quarters  of  the  world,  where  they  became  the  heads  of 
new  Jewish  centres  of  learning.  One  of  them,  Shemaria 
ben  Elchanan,  settled  in  Cairo ;  another,  Chushiel,  at 
Kairuan,  in  Africa;  the  third,  Nathan  bar  Isaac  Hacohen, 
at  Narbonne,  and  Moses  ben  Enoch  at  Cordova.  On 
his  release,  Moses  ben  Enoch  paid  a  visit  to  the  local 
school,  and,  in  his  beggarly  garb,  took  a  humble  place 
near  the  door,  listening  to  the  exposition  of  the  Talmud 
by  the  principal.  Rabbi  Nathan.  IMoses  ben  Enoch,  moved 
by  the  prevailing  ignorance,  made  an  interjection  which 
drew  general  attention  to  him,  and  his  explanation  so 
gained  the  admiration  of  the  assembly  that  Nathan,  with 
unusual  generosity,  immediately  withdrew  from  his  po- 
sition in  favour  of  the  liberated  slave,  who  was  elected 
by  the  Jews  of  Cordova  as  their  spiritual  head.  The 
revival  of  Talmudic  studies  and  Hebrew  letters  at  Cor- 
dova was,  however,  largely  due  to  the  influence  and 
munificence  of  Chasdai  ibn  Shaprut,  who  was  invested 
with  various  high  duties  relating  to  diplomacy,  trade  and 
finance  at  the  court  of  the  liberal-minded  khaliph  Abdul 
Rahman  I  (912-961).  It  was  Chasdai  ibn  Shaprut  who, 
in  his  intercourse  with  the  Byzantine  ambassadors  to  Cor- 
dova, had  learnt  of  the  existence  of  the  Jewish  Chazars, 
and  he  evinced  even  greater  interest  in  the  growth  and 
W'elfare  of  Judaism  at  home. 

The  first  distinctions  gained  by  the  Spanish  Jews  were 
in  the  fields  of  Hebrew  grammar  and  poetry,  by  two  pro- 
teges of  ibn  Shaprut,  Menachem  ben  Saruk  and  Dunash 


72  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

ibn  Labrat.  Menachem  ben  Saruk  was  a  pathfinder  in 
Hebrew  grammar,  in  which,  however,  he  was  soon  ex- 
celled by  the  more  scientific  Judah  Chayug,  and  subse- 
quently entirely  superseded  by  Jonah  ibn  Janach,  one  of 
the  greatest  masters  of  Hebrew  philology  (died  1050). 
Dunash  ibn  Labrat  was  the  first  of  a  long  and  glorious 
line  of  Hispano-Jewish  poets.  He  developed  and  beauti- 
fied the  rhythm  and  metre  of  Neo-Hebrew  poetry,  which, 
in  imitation  of  the  Arabic  muse,  had  already  sprung  up  in 
Babylonia,  where  Eleazar  ben  Kalir,  whose  stilted  com- 
positions are  to  be  found  in  the  Jewish  liturgy,  for  some 
of  the  holydays,  became  the  foremost  representative  of  the 
Payetanim,  or  liturgical  poets. 

The  break-up  of  the  Spanish  khaliphate  (1013)  also  In- 
volved the  Jews  of  Cordova,  who  were  unfortunate  in 
having  espoused  the  losing  side,  and  were,  therefore,  ex- 
pelled from  the  city.  A  fugitive  from  Cordova  was 
Samuel  ibn  Nagdela  (993-1055),  who  rose  to  be  the  vizier 
of  the  king  of  Granada,  and  was  entrusted  with  the  dip- 
lomatic affairs  of  state.  Samuel  ibn  Nagdela,  named  by 
the  Jews  Samuel  Hanagid  (the  Chief),  was  not  only  a 
generous  and  discriminating  patron  of  Jewish  learning, 
but  himself  a  scholar  and  poet  of  distinction,  being  both 
the  spiritual  and  secular  head  of  the  community.  His 
son  Joseph  ibn  Nagdela,  who  succeeded  him  in  his  dig- 
nities, was,  however,  not  able  to  maintain  himself  against 
the  envy  and  machinations  of  his  enemies,  and,  on  his 
fall  and  violent  death,  the  Jews  of  Granada  were  given 
over  to  wholesale  massacre  and  expulsion.  A  large  num- 
ber of  them  went  to  Saragossa,  where  Abu  al-Fadhl  ibn 
Chasdai  was  vizier,  an  office  of  danger  as  well  as  of  dig- 
nity which  a  number  of  Jews  occupied  in  those  days  at 
the  various  Mohammedan  courts  in  Spain.  The  interne- 
cine rivalries  and  struggles  of  the  Moorish  kings  and 
parties  brought  many  ups  and  downs  to  the  Jews,  so  that 
in  spite  of  all  culture  and  prosperity,  they  were  often 
forced  to  flee  from  one  part  of  the  Peninsula  to  another. 


THE    GOLDEN    AGE    OF  JUDAISM  73 

Hence,  the  Jews  also  came  under  the  rule  of  Christian 
rulers  in  Spain,  a  number  of  whom,  impressed  with  the 
importance  of  winning  over  to  their  side  such  an  influ- 
ential part  of  the  population  as  the  Jews,  souq;ht  to  do 
so  by  tolerant  treatment  and  equitable  laws.  The  Chris- 
tian kings  likewise  employed  Jews  in  the  financial  and 
diplomatic  services,  and  Alfonso  VI,  who  greatly  fav- 
oured them,  had  40,000  Jews  in  his  army.  It  was  on 
their  account  that  the  battle  of  Zallaka  was,  by  a  mutual 
truce,  held  over  until  after  the  Sabbath.  The  Jews  seem 
indeed  to  have  taken  prominent  parts  in  the  wars  between 
the  various  Iberian  states.  Christian  and  Mohammedan, 
and,  as  in  the  case  of  Judah  ibn  Ezra,  the  major-domo 
of  Alfonso  VII,  Jews  were  sometimes  entrusted  with  the 
charge  and  command  of  fortified  places. 

Of  universal  import  are  the  Jewish  philosophers  in 
Spain  and  those  who  traced  their  descent  from  that  coun- 
try. They  include  stars  of  striking  brilliancy  in  the  phil- 
osophical firmament,  and  their  influence  on  medieval 
thought  was  of  the  highest.  It  is  the  peculiar  distinction 
of  these  Jewish  philosophers  that,  while  they  were  pro- 
foundly imbued  with  the  Hebraic  spirit,  they  were  at  the 
same  time  men  of  remarkably  rationalistic  thought  and 
bold  inquiry,  and  some  of  them  were  poets  of  the  foremost 
rank.  Hebrew  poetry,  which  had  been  dormant  since  the 
times  of  the  Maccabees,  to  which  we  owe  a  number  of 
the  most  stirring  psalms,  immortalized  with  even  greater 
luxuriance,  if  not  with  equally  sublime  simplicity,  the 
happy  days  and  inspired  moments  which  Jews  experienced 
under  the  sunny  skies  of  Spain.  Among  the  greatest  of 
philosophers  and  poets  who  graced  that  epoch,  Solomon 
ibn  Gebirol  was  among  the  first,  Judah  Halevi  among  the 
highest,  Solomon  ibn  Gebirol  (1021-1070),  who  was 
early  in  life  bereft  of  his  parents  and  also  had  to  mourn 
his  patron,  Jekuthiel  ibn  Hassan,  the  Jewish  vizier  of 
the  king  of  Saragossa,  was  of  a  melancholy  disposition, 
which  pervaded  his  rich  and  varied  poetry.     Most  of  all, 


74  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

ibn  Geblrol's  renown  rests  on  his  philosophical  distinction, 
as  the  first  who  introduced  Greco-Arabic  philosophy  into 
medieval  Christian  circles.  His  acquaintance  with  the 
Greek  and  Arabic  philosophers  he  brought  into  an  or- 
ganized system  in  his  work,  The  Fountain  of  Life  ("Fons 
Vits").  This,  in  a  Latin  translation  from  the  Arabic 
and  free  from  any  specific  theological  bias,  became  later 
on  one  of  the  important  sources  of  Christian  scholasticism, 
which  looked  upon  ibn  Gebirol  as  a  Christian  philosopher.' 
His  best  known  poem,  The  Crown  of  Kingdoni  ("Kether 
Malchuth"),  which  has  been  incorporated  in  the  liturgy 
for  the  eve  of  the  Day  of  Atonement,  is  a  masterpiece  of 
majestic  religious  thought  and  elevated  praise  of  God's 
glory.  Excelling  him  in  depth  of  emotion  and  in  beauty 
of  expression  was  Judah  Halevi  (born  about  1086,  died 
about  1 140),  the  greatest  Jewish  poet  since  the  days  when 
the  living  source  of  Hebrew  song  was  dried  up  with 
misfortune  and  neglect.  As  in  those  far-away  days  of 
old,  Zion  once  more  inspired  the  Jewish  muse  and  raised 
it  to  the  most  exalted  heights  of  divine  ecstasy.  Judah 
Halevi  possessed  the  magic  wand  which  made  the  lyrical 
waters  flow  again,  and  his  songs  of  Zion,  depicting  the 
past  glory,  the  unutterable  sadness  of  the  present  and 
the  yearnings  for  the  joys  of  Israel's  future,  have  re- 
mained among  the  most  enduring  of  the  spiritual  treas- 
ures of  his  people.  As  his  poetry,  so  his  philosophy  was 
imbued  with  a  passionate  love  for  the  people  of  Israel, 
which  he  termed  "the  heart  of  mankind."  With  a  lofty 
spirituality,  he  set  out  his  conception  of  the  Jewish  faith 
in  a  work  entitled  Hakuzari,  in  which  he  weaves  round 
the  story  of  the  conversion  to  Judaism  of  Bulan,  the 
chagan  of  the  Chazars,  a  philosophical  apologv'  for  Ju- 
daism against  the  claims  of  opposing  religions.  True  to 
his  philosophy  and  his  poetry,  he  turned  his  steps  towards 
Zion,  and,  leaving  home,  family  and  friends,  he  entered 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  City,  and  died  after  having 
reached  the  goal  of  his  life-long  yearnings. 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  JUDAISM  75 

A  philosophical  writer,  whose  warm  reh'gious  feeling 
and  lucidity  of  stjle  have  placed  him  among  the  most 
popular  of  Jewish  thinkers,  was  Bachya  ihn  Pakuda,  and 
his  Duties  of  the  Heart  ("Chohoth  Halebahoth")  has 
maintained  its  foremost  position  in  the  post-biblical  de- 
votional literature  of  the  Jews. 

A  subject  of  engrossing  thought  and  occupation  to  the 
medieval  Jew  was  the  interpretation  of  the  Sacred  Scrip- 
tures, and  in  this  direction  also  the  Spanish  Jews  took 
the  most  prominent  part.  Some  of  their  biblical  com- 
mentators were  independent,  rationalistic  critics  of  Holy 
Writ,  when  the  original  text  and  its  criticism  were  prac- 
tically unknow-n  to  the  Christian  ecclesiastics  of  Europe. 
Abraham  ibn  Ezra  (1088-1167)  still  to  the  present  day 
retains  a  place  of  honour  among  expositors  of  the  Bible. 
Remarkable  as  an  exegetist,  he  was  an  adept  in  grammar, 
mathematics,  astronomy  and  astrology  (which  occupied 
with  alchemy  such  a  large  portion  of  time  of  the  wise 
men  in  the  Midle  Ages)  ;  a  traveller  who,  in  the  twelfth 
century,  knew  his  way  all  over  the  world,  from  Bagdad 
to  London.  If  less  known  to  fame,  his  relative  and  con- 
temporary, Moses  ibn  Ezra,  was  a  thinker  and  poet  of 
many  parts  and  high  distinction.  Among  the  travellers 
of  the  age  was  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  an  account  of  whose 
extensive  journeys  over  Europe,  Asia  and  Africa  has  been 
preserved  in  his  interesting  and  valuable  Itinerary,  a 
repeatedly  re-edited  and  re-published  book  of  travel.  Of 
great  importance  as  commentators  were  the  Kimchi  fam- 
ily in  Spain  and  Provence,  especially  David  Kimchi  ( i  I6o- 
I235),  whose  Michlol,  containing  a  Hebrew  grammar 
and  biblical  dictionary,  and  commentaries  on  the  Bible, 
exerted  a  far-reaching  influence  on  Christians  and  Jews 
alike. 

§  6.  Moses  Maimonides. — Whatever  distinction 
must  be  ascribed  to  all  these  poets,  philosophers,  physi- 
cians, astronomers,  grammarians  and  exegetists,  they  were 
excelled  and  entirely  overshadowed  by  one  of  the  giants 


'7(^  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

of  the  Jewish  people,  whose  appearance  in  the  twelfth 
century  marks  the  culminating  point  of  medieval  Judaism. 

Moses  Maimonides  (ben  Maimon)  was  born  in  Cor- 
dova in  1 135,  of  a  father  who  was  himself  a  notable 
scholar.  When  he  was  thirteen  years  of  age,  Cordova 
was  captured  by  the  fanatical  Almohades,  who  forced  all 
the  Jews  and  Christians  there  to  adopt  Islam.  The  fam- 
ily of  Moses  escaped,  and,  after  aimlessly  wandering  about 
for  some  time,  went  to  Fez,  where  the  prevailing  perse- 
cution forced  them  to  outwardly  conform  to  Moham- 
medanism, and  then,  after  living  for  some  time  in  Pal- 
estine, they  settled  permanently  at  Cairo  (Fostat),  in 
Egypt.  A  physician  by  profession,  Moses  Maimonides 
became  famous  in  the  art  of  medicine;  he  regularly  at- 
tended to  the  court  of  the  renowned  Sultan  Saladin,  and 
refused  a  similar  position  to  king  Richard  the  Lion- 
hearted  of  England,  when  he  was  on  his  crusading  ex- 
pedition at  Ascalon.  But  in  spite  of  his  engrossing  oc- 
cupation, in  which  he  rose  to  high  achievement  both  as 
practitioner  and  author,  Moses  Maimonides'  marvellous 
energy  and  capacity  overstepped  the  boundaries  of  time 
and  the  knowledge  of  his  age.  A  disciple  of  Aristotle, 
Maimonides  became  a  master  of  his  philosophy.  He  wrote 
on  mathematics  and  astronomy,  but,  unlike  his  contem- 
poraries, he  declared  astrology  unworthy  of  attention.  All 
this  was,  however,  subsidiary  to  his  unrivalled  importance 
as  the  central  figure  of  Talmudical  Judaism.  Maimon- 
ides, by  his  monumental  work  Mishneth  Torch  (also 
called  "Yad  Hachazakah,"  "The  Strong  Hand"),  brought 
the  whole  unwieldy  mass  of  traditional  Jewish  law  into 
systematic  order,  and  his  statements  and  views,  given 
with  the  confidence  and  authority  of  a  master,  became 
the  accepted  standard  of  his  own  and  subsequent  genera- 
tions. 

This  exhaustive  code  of  Jewish  practice  was  followed 
by  The  Guide  of  the  Perplexed  ("Moreh  Nebuchim"), 
a  work  on  the  philosophy  of  Judaism.     Lacking  the  firip 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  JUDAISM  77 

and  unquestioned  basis  of  the  Biblical  and  Talmudical 
sources,  and  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  bold,  if  reverent, 
philosophical  inquiry,  the  Guide  gave  rise  afterwards  to 
very  bitter  disputes  among  the  Jews,  so  violent  that  his 
name  was  execrated  by  his  opponents,  and  gave  oppor- 
tunity for  the  lamentable  intervention  of  the  none  too 
friendly  Christian  authorities.  The  Guide  of  the  Per- 
plexed was,  however,  a  work  which,  by  its  profundity  of 
thought,  enlightened  spirit  and  masterly  treatment  of  the 
highest  spiritual  problems,  gained  the  admiration  of  the 
best  minds  of  the  author's  time.  Soon  afterwards,  parts 
of  the  Guide  were  translated  into  Latin,  and  utilized  by 
the  great  Christian  scholastics,  while  it  was  to  prove  a 
source  of  creative  thought  for  the  Jews  in  future  ages, 

Maimonides  may  be  regarded  as  first  among  the  ration- 
alists, yet  while  Jewish  thought  seemed  up  to  his  time 
without  any  recognized  limits  to  speculation  so  long  as 
the  Torah  and  its  institutions  were  respected,  it  was 
Maimonides  who  not  only  in  his  Guide  laid  down  the 
lines  and  limitations  of  Jewish  religious  philosophy,  but 
introduced  a  hitherto  unknown  definitely  dogmatic  con- 
ception of  Judaism,  and  elaborated  thirteen  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Jewish  faith  which  have  since  remained 
the  accepted  basis  of  traditional,  or  orthodox,  Judaism. 
There  is  perhaps  nothing  which  gives  so  true  an  indication 
of  the  moral  strength  and  spiritual  unity  of  Judaism  as 
the  fact  that  while  the  Church,  with  all  the  pomp  and 
power  at  its  command,  could  not  enforce  the  solemn  de- 
cisions of  its  Councils  and  recognized  ecclesiastical  heads, 
the  dogmatic  authority  of  the  simple  and  humble  thinker 
Moses  Maimonides  was  accepted  unquestionably  in  all  the 
dispersions  of  Israel. 

Maimonides,  by  his  personality,  transferred  the  centre 
of  Judaism  to  Egj'pt,  where  he  was  recognized  as  the 
Nagid  (Chief)  of  the  Jewish  community.  He  was  con- 
sulted by  Jews  from  all  parts,  and  his  extant  replies  give 
an  insight  into  the  generous  tolerance  and  nobility  of  soul 


78  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

of  this  great  son  of  Talmudical  Judaism.  He  was  not 
only  friendly  to  the  Karaites,  and  took  a  lenient  view  of 
those  who,  like  himself  at  one  time,  had  been  forced  to 
hide  under  a  strange  faith,  but  he  also  repudiated  the 
narrow  view  that  Mohammedanism  should  be  looked  upon 
as  an  idolatry  on  account  of  the  veneration  paid  to  the 
Kaaba,  and  regarded  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism 
as  world-religions  with  providential  purposes  in  history. 
Yet  a  correspondence  with  a  proselyte  to  Judaism  shows 
that  to  him  it  was  the  faith  whose  truth  ennobles  all  who 
place  themselves  under  its  allegiance.  His  death  in  the 
year  1 204,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  closes  a  brilliant  epoch 
in  Jewish  history,  and  (in  allusion  to  Deut.  xxxiv.  10) 
it  was  well  said  of  him  that  "from  Moses  till  Moses 
(Maimonides)  there  did  not  arise  one  like  unto  Moses 
(Maimonides)." 

§  7.  The  Franco-German  Schools. — A  counter- 
part to  the  Spanish  scholars,  though  small  in  comparison, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  learned  men  of  France  and  Germany. 
An  impetus  to  Jewish  learning  in  the  South  of  France, 
which  benefited  by  its  proximity  to  Spain,  was  given  by 
the  arrival  in  Narbonne  of  Nathan  bar  Isaac,  one  of  the 
four  Bab3donian  legates  who  had  been  taken  captive  on 
their  way.  His  disciple  Judah  ben  Meir,  or  Leontin, 
took  up  his  master's  mantle,  but  it  was  reserved  for 
Rabbenu  (our  Master)  Gershom  ben  Judah  to  establish 
Talmudical  studies  in  France  and  Germany  on  broad  and 
sure  foundations.  The  Franco-German  scholars  did  not 
attain  to  the  polish  and  versatility,  as  well  as  the  philo- 
sophical breadth  of  view,  which  distinguished  their  Span- 
ish brethren;  but,  if  the  Northerns  lacked  the  touch  of 
genius,  they  at  least  possessed  in  an  abundant  measure 
moral  earnestness  and  deep  piety.  Rabbenu  Gershom, 
who  was  looked  upon  by  his  contemporaries  in  France, 
Germany  and  Italy  as  the  "light  of  the  captivity,"  was 
born  in  France  in  960,  and  established  a  school  at  May- 
ence,  which  became  for  many  generations  an  important 


THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  JUDAISM  79 

centre  for  Talmudical  studies,  Rahbenu  Gershom's  ac- 
tivity remained  remarkable  in  Jewish  history  by  his  edict 
forbidding  polygamous  marriages,  and  it  is  astounding 
that  the  mere  word  of  a  man  with  no  recognized  official 
authority  should  have  been  enough  to  turn  this  wholesome 
decree  into  a  law  for  European  Jewry. 

The  fame  of  Rabbenu  Gcrshom  was  even  eclipsed  by 
Solomon  Itschaki,  of  Troves,  in  the  province  of  Cham- 
pagne (1040-1105),  who,  under  the  name  of  Rashi,^  be- 
came one  of  the  most  popular  post-biblical  writers.  This 
reputation  he  fully  deserved  by  his  commentaries  on  the 
Bible  and  the  Talmud,  particularly  on  the  Bible,  which  be- 
came the  vade  mecuni  of  Jews  of  all  degrees  of  learning 
or  ignorance,  and  helped  very  much  to  give  them  an  in- 
telligent meaning  of  the  words  of  Holy  Writ,  To 
the  Christian  world,  too,  Rashi  became  an  authority  on 
the  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testament,  especially  in  the 
bringing  out  the  literal,  not  the  merely  fanciful  or  al- 
legorical, sense.  Luther's  translation  was  largely  based 
on  Rashi's  exegesis,  conveyed  to  him  through  Rashi's 
countrjman  Nicolas  de  Lyra,  so  that  it  was  said:  "Si 
Lyra  non  lyrasset,  Luther  non  saltasset."  Rashi,  who 
united  a  saintly  character  to  vast  learning  and  lucidity 
of  teaching,  became  the  leader  to  the  students  of  the 
Talmud  in  Europe,  and  his  influence,  continued  by  his 
learned  grandsons  and  sons-in-law,  made  the  Talmud  an 
engrossing  object  of  research  among  the  Jews  who  were 
then  spreading  over  the  northern  parts  of  the  Continent. 
The  most  prominent  of  Rashi's  successors  was  Rabbenu 
Jacob  Tarn  (1100-1171),  his  youngest  grandson,  a  keen 
and  enlightened  mind.  Rabbenu  Tam  was  the  founder  of 
the  Tossaphists,  /'.  e.  those  who  added  to  the  Talmud  notes 
and  decisions  arising  out  of  the  studies  of  the  Franco- 

^  According  to  a  peculiar  and  favourite  Jewish  method  of  nam- 
ing celebrities  by  a  combination  of  their  initials,  e.g.  Rabbi  Sol- 
omon Itschaki  as  RaShI,  or  Rabbi  Moses  ben  Malmon  [Mai- 
monides]    as  RaMBaM. 


8o  HISTORY  OP  THE  JEWS 

German  schools.  Under  his  spiritual  guidance  was  ini- 
tiated the  institution  of  Rabbinical  conferences  to  decide 
on  matters  of  moment  which  then  threatened  the  very 
existence  of  the  Jews. 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Dark  Ages 

§  I,  The  General  State. — Judaism  had  now  pro- 
duced its  ripest  fruits  in  Babylonia  and  Spain,  and  the 
seeds  of  Jewish  learning  had  even  been  transplanted  into 
Northern  Europe.  The  gloom  that  had  enshrouded  the 
Jews  by  the  growth  of  the  Christian  Roman  empire  had 
been  pierced  by  the  light  which  shone  on  them  with  the 
appearance  of  Mohammedanism  as  a  world-power.  Un- 
der the  beneficent  sway  of  Islam  when  it  represented  the 
highest  forms  of  the  then  existing  civilization,  the  Jews 
in  the  Iberian  Peninsula  had  risen  to  great  prosperity, 
and  their  intellectual  achievements  were  for  centuries  to 
come  to  grow  even  on  the  uncongenial  soil  of  Christian 
Spain.  In  Christendom  the  Jews  had,  forsooth,  enough 
to  suffer  from  mighty  and  petty  tyrants,  from  councils 
and  priests  of  a  propagandist  Church,  intolerant  of  all 
opposition  within  and  without.  Yet,  though  treated  as 
obnoxious  strangers  and  unbelievers,  at  least  the  Jews 
in  the  Carlovingian  empire,  and  even  in  England  and 
Christian  Spain,  found  some  justice  and  occasional  favour 
as  a  useful  mercantile  class  in  a  state  of  society  in  which 
religion  and  arms  were  the  only  tolerable  occupations. 
If  trade  was  considered  less  honourable,  it  was,  on  the 
whole,  more  profitable  than  either  of  those  professions. 
Regarded  by  the  rulers  as  a  very  valuable  source  of  rev- 
enue, even  as  an  indispensable  adjunct  of  the  population, 
and  competing  with  none  of  them,  the  Jews  not  only  en- 
joyed the  protection  of  the  authorities,  but  also  largely 
the  passive  good-will  of  their  neighbours. 

8i 


82  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

But  the  clouds  had  been  gathering,  and  the  Jews  were 
overwhelmed  by  the  storm  that  burst  over  them.  The 
enlightened  khaliphs  in  Bagdad  and  Cordova  were  suc- 
ceeded by  Oriental  despots  and  wild  Moorish  chiefs,  whose 
fanaticism  swept  away  the  marks  of  Jewish  liberty  and 
dignity.  The  Prince  of  the  Captivity  became  a  mere 
memory,  and  Spain,  where  the  sons  of  the  last  occupant 
of  that  high  office  had  found  an  asylum,  also  soon  ceased 
to  be  a  safe  refuge  for  the  harassed  Jews.  In  the  de- 
ca3'ed  Byzantine  empire,  now  but  a  shrivelled  shadow 
of  its  former  glory,  the  Jews  were  torn  up  root  and 
branch,  and  the  Jewish  kingdom  of  the  Chazars  had 
ceased  to  exist.  Meanwhile,  at  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century,  the  crusades  finally  introduced  among  the  Jews 
in  Western  Christendom  that  era  of  darkness  which  was 
to  envelop  them  for  over  seven  centuries,  and  which  was 
only  to  be  lit  up  now  and  again  by  the  indomitable  vigour 
of  the  Jewish  intellect  and  by  the  heroic  resistance  of 
Jewish  faith. 

§  2.  Sufferings  and  Trials. — It  was  particularly 
the  crusades  which  changed  the  condition  of  the  Jews 
for  the  worse  in  many  directions.  The  wholesale  mas- 
sacre of  the  Jews,  which  accompanied  the  crusades,  broke 
their  economic  prosperity.  The  new  relations  which  were 
now  opened  up  between  East  and  West  deprived  the  Jews 
of  the  most  reputable  and  useful  part  of  their  business, 
and  drew  them  entirely  into  money-lending  and  petty 
trading.  The  outrages  against  the  Jews  hung  since  then 
like  a  pall  over  them,  and  darkened  their  friendly  inter- 
course with  the  outside  world ;  the  base  and  baseless  ac- 
cusations which  were  levelled  against  the  Jews  to  con- 
done the  violence  perpetrated,  remained  fixed  in  the  ig- 
norant minds  of  the  populace,  and  proved  afterwards  in- 
exhaustible causes  for  murder,  plunder  and  all  manner 
of  persecution.  Malice,  stupidity,  honest  bigotry  and 
zealous  piety  combined  to  make  the  life  of  the  Jew  in- 
tolerable.    It  became  a  current  idea  that  Jews  used  the 


THE  DARK  AGES  83 

blood  of  Christians,  especially  of  defenceless  Christian 
children,  for  ritual  purposes  during  the  feast  of  Passover 
(a  charge  similar  to  that  levelled  against  the  primitive 
Christians  by  their  pagan  enemies)  ;  on  the  occasion  of 
an  epidemic,  there  was  a  ready  belief  that  the  Jews  had 
poisoned  the  wells;  there  was  a  shuddering  tradition  that 
the  unbelieving  Jews  insulted  and  pierced  the  host  as  a 
revenge  on  Christ.  These  and  other  extravagances  of  a 
credulous  people  sent  them  into  frantic  outbursts  against 
the  Jews,  which  ended  in  tragedies  the  mere  recital  of 
which  stirs  the  depths  of  our  emotion.  The  persecution 
of  the  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages  presents  the  saddest  tale 
of  human  cruelt)'  and  suffering,  but  it  would  not  serve 
any  useful  purpose  to  set  out  here  in  detail  the  long,  dreary 
record  of  sickening  brutalities,  the  recurring  massacres  and 
expulsions,  the  numerous  and  elaborate  regulations  which 
were  intended  to  degrade  and  dishonour  the  Jews,  the 
fanatical  determination  to  brand  them  as  outcasts  con- 
demned by  God  and  man. 

It  is  not  only  that  faith  was  superstitious,  that  manners 
were  harsh  and  men  cruel  in  those  dark  medieval  days. 
It  was  just  this  state  of  things  which  aggravated  the 
already  precarious  situation  of  the  Jews.  If  heretics 
were  hunted  down  mercilessly,  many  could  escape  un- 
noticed the  general  proscription ;  if  the  Christian  serf  was 
treated  with  less  kindness  than  the  beast,  he  could  at  least 
appeal  to  the  self-interest  and  pity  of  his  superiors.  What 
could  the  Jew  expect,  the  Jew  shut  off  by  religious  and 
racial,  by  natural  and  artificial  barriers,  from  the  general 
population?  Driven  to  live  in  special  quarters,  which 
served  perhaps  as  much  for  his  protection  as  for  his  abase- 
ment, surrounded  by  oppressive  and  restrictive  proscrip- 
tions, which  hampered  all  his  movements,  the  Lateran 
Church  Council  in  1215  promulgated  its  solemn  decision 
that  the  Jews  should  wear  a  distinctive  badge  on  their 
dress,  and  Christian  authorities  set  seriously  to  work  to 
determine  the  size  and  shape  of  the  rag  which  was  to 


84  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

be  the  compulsory  mark  of  Cain  on  the  body  of  every 
Jew.  Thus  degraded,  cast  out  of  the  pale  of  humanity 
by  the  highest  authority  on  earth,  reduced  to  the  most 
hateful  and  the  meanest  callings,  the  Jews  became  the 
butt  of  the  rabble,  high  and  low.  Whether  it  was  the 
spirit  of  fierce  animosity  or  of  coarse  ribaldry,  such  as 
was  known  only  to  the  Middle  Ages,  the  life  of  a  Jew 
was  a  constant,  hopeless  martyrdom. 

The  economic  state  of  the  Jews  was  in  every  way  con- 
ducive to  the  moral  degradation  to  which  they  were  sub- 
jected. The  exclusion  from  the  soil  and  every  honour- 
able profession  or  handicraft  drove  the  Jews  to  money- 
lending — indeed,  a  most  useful,  and  even  indispensable, 
function  in  commercial  intercourse,  yet  one  which  under 
abnormal  conditions  lends  itself  to  extortion,  and  exer- 
cises a  pernicious  effect  on  both  parties  to  the  transaction. 
The  matter  became  infinitely  worse  when  the  Jew  was 
only  used  by  emperor  and  king,  baron  and  bishop,  to  draw 
the  substance  out  of  the  people,  so  that  it  might  be  more 
conveniently  appropriated  by  their  common  lord,  for  the 
Jew  was  only  suffered  to  exist  because  he  was  one  of  the 
most  important  sources  of  revenue  to  the  ruler  to  whose 
mercy  and  caprice  he  owed  his  precarious  protection. 
The  Jews  thereby  became  the  property  of  their  "pro- 
tectors," who  sold,  pawned  or  bequeathed  them  at  their 
pleasure.  In  a  moment  of  generosity,  the  emperor  would 
reward  some  prince  or  town  with  the  privilege  of  har- 
bouring Jews  or  would  mark  his  gracious  pleasure  to- 
wards his  faithful  lieges  by  cancelling  their  indebtedness 
to  the  Jews.  It  was  the  appeal  for  protection,  especially 
during  the  atrocities  of  the  crusades,  which  largely 
brought  about  this  servitude  of  the  Jews.  The  prince 
who  had  protected  the  Jews  from  violence,  and  allowed 
them  further  to  stay  on  his  land,  profited  by  his  clemency, 
and  converted  "his"  grateful  Jews  into  bondsmen.  At- 
tacks on  the  Jews  were  thus  advantageous  from  all  points, 
except  the  Jewish.     The  German  emperors  themselves 


THE  DARK  AGES  85 

utilized  the  fiction  that,  as  successors  of  the  emperors  of 
Rome,  they  were  the  lords  of  tiieir  Jewish  captives,  and 
that  the  Jews  were,  therefore,  the  serfs  of  the  imperial 
chamber.  No  wonder  that,  when  the  Jews  found  at 
times  their  condition  so  unbearable  that  they  attempted 
to  emigrate,  they  w  ere  stopped  on  the  way.  The  short- 
est metliod  of  securing  all  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the 
Jews  was  to  expel  them  and  confiscate  their  possessions; 
sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  Philip  Augustus  of  France, 
the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  was  soon  followed  by  their 
readmission. 

Ail  this  had  evil  consequences  on  the  character  of  the 
Jews  who  had  to  submit  to  this  life  of  wretched  misery. 
Massacre  and  pillage  were  not  every-day  affairs,  but  in  a 
way  worse  than  these  was  the  degradation  which  the  Jews 
suffered  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  The  Jew  could 
no  longer  strike  a  blow  for  independence,  or  even  man- 
hood. He  had  no  means  to  defend  himself  against  over- 
whelming odds,  and  he,  therefore,  sought  refuge  and  se- 
curity in  contempt  and  obscurity,  in  calculated  cringing 
and  abject  submission.  It  had  been  made  impossible  for 
him  to  inspire  respect,  and  he  gave  up  the  attempt.  Only 
tolerated  on  account  of  his  wealth,  which  meant,  there- 
fore, life  and  happiness  to  him,  he  had  to  amass  it  as 
well  as  he  could.  Surrounded  by  envious  and  greedy  eyes, 
he  dared  not  make  generous  use  of  his  belongings.  (As 
late  as  the  )'ear  1601  the  whole  estate  of  Mordecai  Meisel, 
of  Prague,  the  most  philanthropic  as  well  as  the  richest 
Jew  of  hi«  time,  was,  without  rhyme  or  reason,  confis- 
cated by  order  of  the  emperor  Rudolph  II,  and  the  heirs 
were  tortured  to  reveal  any  hidden  treasure.)  The  Jew- 
ish house  of  study  and  prayer,  regarded  by  the  outsider 
as  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  was  situated  in  some  inacces- 
sible spot  of  the  Jewish  quarter,  away  from  the  ribald 
gaze  of  the  populace,  and  out  of  reach  of  the  hand  of 
fanaticism.  Being  confined  to  intimate  intercourse 
amongst  themselves,  their  garb  distinguished  by  a  hideous 


86  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

badge,  they  assumed  an  air  of  neglect,  and  their  very 
speech  turned  into  a  mere  jargon. 

§  3.  The  Forces  of  Resistance. — The  inevitable 
consequences  of  this  systematic  degradation  of  the  Jews 
was,  however,  very  largely  mitigated  by  the  very  remark- 
able Jewish  scheme  of  life.  So  far  from  feeling  degraded, 
the  medieval  Jews  certainly  considered  themselves  superior 
to  their  surroundings.  They  were  in  conscious  posses- 
sion of  a  faith  which  excluded  all  miracle-mongering, 
relic  and  image  worship  and  most  other  forms  of  active 
superstition ;  they  represented  a  moral  standard  which 
eschewed  the  bloodshed  and  inhuman  cruelties  that  tarred 
their  neighbours ;  they  upheld  a  pure  and  affectionate  fam- 
ily life  which  W'on  over  the  unwilling  admiration  of  their 
enemies;  they  formed  a  voluntary  brotherhood  which 
knew  of  no  serf  or  slave;  they  represented  a  culture  of 
acknowledged  grandeur  which  reached  back  a  thousand 
years  before  their  adversaries  w^ere  heard  of;  in  an  age 
when  many  of  the  highest  dignitaries,  and  even  princes, 
could  hardly  write  their  names,  the  Jews  employed  a 
system  of  universal  education;  at  a  time  w^hen  faith  was 
raised  into  the  highest  principle,  they  produced  their  keen- 
est thinkers.  Added  to  all  these  considerations,  religious 
emotion  of  the  purest  and  most  exalted  type  quickened 
the  self-consciousness  of  the  Jews,  steeled  their  patient  en- 
durance and  stirred  them  into  heroic  resolves,  such  as, 
in  their  intensity  and  duration,  stand  unparalleled  in  the 
experience  of  mankind. 

Thus,  to  the  medal  of  the  dull,  drab  wretchedness  that 
surrounded  Jewish  life,  there  was  an  obverse,  which  was 
hardly  observed  by  the  outside  world.  If,  in  spite  of  all 
degradation,  the  Jews  maintained  an  intellectual  superior- 
ity' over  their  more  favoured  neighbours;  if,  after  all  their 
vicissitudes,  they  showed  themselves  on  their  emancipa- 
tion ready  and  anxious  to  enjoy  the  rights  so  long  with- 
held from  them,  and  if  they  w-ere  able  so  soon  to  divest 
themselves  of  the  servitude  of  immemorial  ages,  we  must 


THE  DARK  AGES  87 

ascribe  this  miracle  to  the  inner  life  of  the  Jews,  to  the 
religious  and  social  institutions  of  Judaism.  The 
strength  of  resistance  and  cohesion  was  furnished  by  the 
high  idealism,  which,  in  spite  of  all  outward  sordidness, 
necessarily  pervaded  the  thoughts  of  the  Jew  who  suffered 
for  his  faith ;  by  the  wondrously  mapped-out  life  of 
healthy  physical  habits,  intellectual  exercise  and  family 
affection.  The  Jew  was  a  sober,  industrious  and  sexually 
moral  man  in  his  daily  affairs.  In  times  of  epidemic  it 
was  remarked,  and  it  was  a  dangerous  accusation,  that 
Jews  suffered  least.  The  regulations  of  personal  cleanli- 
ness enjoined  by  the  Jewish  religion,  the  extreme  care 
devoted  to  the  selection  and  preparation  of  food,  were 
more  than  enough  to  overcome  the  disadvantages  pre- 
sented by  the  naturally  cramped  and  pestilent  conditions 
prevailing  in  the  Jews'  quarters.  What  if  cleanliness, 
by  being  invested  with  the  sanctity  of  religious  ordinances, 
had  thereby  become  to  the  Jew  a  part  of  godliness?  In 
the  Middle  Ages,  when  cleanliness  was  a  rare  virtue 
even  among  the  upper  classes,  the  Jewish  laws  of  purifica- 
tion must  have  exerted  an  enormous  influence  on  well- 
being.  The  bath  may  indeed  have  been  taken  and  the 
person  adorned  in  honour  of  the  divinely  instituted  Sab- 
bath; the  hands  washed  preparatory  to  the  meal  as  a 
religious  injunction;  the  flesh-meat  scrupulously  investi- 
gated by  the  force  of  ritual  ordinances;  spring-cleaning 
of  a  most  conscientious  kind  disguised  under  the  obliga- 
tory preparations  for  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread  (Pass- 
over), yet  the  blessings  of  health,  and  of  the  light  and 
air  that  the  ghetto  (Jews'  quarter)  would  admit,  were 
all  the  same  vouchsafed  to  the  Jew,  when  all  other  cir- 
cumstances combined  to  reduce  the  standard  of  life  to 
the  lowest  level. 

Of  even  greater  value  and  consequence  than  the  care 
bestowed  on  the  body  was  the  cultivation  of  the  mind. 
In  the  darkest  ignorance  of  the  Dark  Ages,  study  was 
regarded  by  the  Jews  as  a  religious  duty  second  to  none. 


88  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

If  this  study  was  at  the  worst  periods  restricted  to  Jewish 
sacred  lore,  it  maintained  and  hallowed  intellectual  pur- 
suits from  which  not  even  the  meanest  Jew  was  con- 
sidered exempt.  To  the  Jew  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
highest  ambition  and  ideal  was — not  to  be  rich,  but  to 
be  counted  among  the  learned  in  the  community.  Ignor- 
ance was  a  disgrace,  for  it  was  only  the  scholar  who  com- 
manded true  respect.  So  much  was  study  part  of  the 
ordinary  day's  work  that  the  function  of  a  Rabbi  was  an 
unpaid  honour,  and  the  Jews'  meeting  house,  the  syna- 
gogue, was  termed  the  school  (the  shool  [from  the  Ger- 
man Schule],  as  English  Jews  still  call  it).  This  attitude 
reached  back  to  the  early  Talmudic  age  (as  in  Eastern 
parts  it  still  continues  largely  to  the  present  day),  when 
every  Jew  was  also  exhorted  to  earn  his  living  in  such 
a  way  as  not  to  turn  his  obligatory  knowledge  of  the 
Torah  into  "a  spade  to  dig  with."  When  the  medieval 
Jews  were  thrown  back  upon  themselves,  this  devotion 
to  scholarship  was  intensified,  and  made  the  Jews  a  nation 
of  literati.  The  sharpening  of  the  mind  by  the  dialectics 
and  arguments  in  which  the  Talmud,  the  chief  object  of 
Jewish  study,  abounds,  produced  a  zest  for  knowledge, 
that  quick  capacity  which  the  Jews  were  able  to  show 
when,  after  many  centuries  of  stunted  growth,  they  were 
afforded  some  fair  measure  of  opportunit}'. 

Last,  but  not  least,  the  medieval  Jews  were  distin- 
guished by  a  wide  and  generous  benevolence  by  which  no 
son  of  the  Covenant  was  considered  an  outcast.  There 
was  no  circumstance  in  life  which  was  not  provided  for 
by  an  all-embracing  charity.  Great  care  was  taken  to 
render  this  charity  (euphemistically  called  zedakah,  right- 
eousness) free  from  the  taint  of  humiliation,  and  even 
the  Jewish  beggar,  especially  if  he  presumed  on  some 
learning,  assumed  a  demanour  which  made  it  clear  to 
the  donor  that  his  was  the  privilege  to  give  what  may 
justly  be  demanded  of  him.  Everywhere  the  fugitive  Jew 
found  a  welcome  at  the  table  of  a  somewhat  more  favour- 


THE  DARK  AGES  89 

ably  situated  co-religionist,  a  welcome  not  as  a  poor 
stranger,  but  as  a  guest  (orach)  ;  tlie  Jew  sold  as  a  slave 
could  rely  on  being  ransomed  by  his  brethren-in-faith. 
Like  every  good  deed,  personal  service  to  the  community 
was  considered  a  divine  commandment  (mitzvah),  where- 
by benevolence  assumed  tliat  touch  of  tender  solicitude 
which  could  only  be  lent  by  the  experience  of  the  uncer- 
tain and  fitful  fortunes  of  a  medieval  Jew. 

The  social  conditions  which  shut  the  Jews  out  from 
familiar  intercourse  with  their  neighbours  made  the  Jews 
only  at  home  amongst  themselves,  and  their  common 
interests  formed  a  bond  of  union  which  their  adversaries 
neither  rightly  understood  nor  justly  forgave.  Debarred 
from  public  activity,  the  Jew  concentrated  his  attention 
on  his  own  circle.  The  family  became  an  object  of  in- 
tense devotion,  and  home  life  the  centre  of  all-absorbing 
thought.  The  Sabbath  and  the  holydays,  in  which  riot- 
ous living  was  unknown,  did  as  much  for  the  fostering 
of  the  ties  of  family  and  kinship  as  of  religion.  Loyalty 
to  the  community  was  invested  with  a  sanctity  which 
made  apostasy  an  unexpiable  sacrilege.  The  false  and 
slanderous  accusations  against  their  former  co-religionists, 
to  which  many  Jewish  converts  to  the  dominant  faith 
lent  themselves,  made  them  particularly  odious  to  those 
who,  in  spite  of  all,  had  remained  true  to  the  House  of 
Israel. 

§  4.  The  Crusades. — The  crusades  called  forth  the 
first  systematic  onslaught  on  the  Jews  in  Central  Europe. 
Not  that  Jewish  blood  had  not  already  been  shed  there 
without  anger  or  provocation.  The  first  persecution  of 
the  Jews  in  Germany  had  occurred  at  the  beginning  of 
the  eleventh  century,  when,  probably  owing  to  the  con- 
version to  Judaism  of  a  priest,  Wecelinus,  the  emperor 
Henry  H  expelled  the  Jews  from  Mayence  and  other 
places,  and  many  Jews,  including  a  son  of  Rabbenu  Ger- 
shom,  were  forced  to  turn  Christian.  Large  sums  of 
money  stayed  the  persecution,  and  the  new  converts  were 


90  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

even    allowed    to    return    to    Judaism.     This    outbreak 
against  the  Jews  was,  however,  as  nothing  compared  to 
the  terrible  visitation  that  overtook  them  in  the  upheaval 
caused  by  the  crusades.     While  the  advance-guard  of  the 
crusaders  had  passed,  leaving  the  Jews  more  or  less  un- 
disturbed,   there    gathered    in    Northern    France   a   vast 
undisciplined  host  of  about  200,000  crusading  marauders 
who  spread   terror  wherever   they   made   their   dreaded 
appearance.     Preceded  by  a  goose  and  a  goat,  which  they 
expected  to  lead  them  to  Jerusalem,  their  aimless  fanati- 
cism was  fired  by  the  suggestion  that  here  at  hand  were 
infidels  like  the   far-away   Saracens,   to  wit,   Jews  who 
had  killed   Christ,  and   that  it  would  be  an   eminently 
Christian  act  to  convert  or  exterminate  them.     Rapacity 
spurred   the  wild  zeal,  and  the  crusaders  threw  them- 
selves on  the  Jewish  communities  on  their  route ;  all  over 
the  districts  bordering  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube, 
death  was  the  fate  of  the  unconverted  Jews  who  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  crusaders,  and  utter  ruin  of  those  who 
escaped.     Twelve  thousand  Jews  in   the  Rhenish  cities 
are   reckoned    to  have   thus  given   their   lives   for   their 
faith.     In  Worms  800  Jewish  bodies  were  buried  after 
the  crusaders  had  done  their  work;  over  1,300  were  done 
to  death  at  Mayence.     Very  few  accepted   Christianity 
even  for  appearance'  sake,  while  a  large  number,  espe- 
cially women  and  girls,  took  their  own  lives  and  those 
near  and  dear  to  them.     The  crusaders  continued  their 
bloody  work  all  along  their  way  as  far  as  Hungary,  but 
the  miserable  fate  that  overtook  them  there  was  regarded 
by  Christian  and  Jew  alike  as  a  just  visitation  of  God. 
The  spirit  in  which  even  the  best  of  the  crusaders  carried 
out  their  holy  task  may  be  judged  by  the  fact  that  when 
they  at  last  entered  Jerusalem,  under  Godfrey  de  Bouil- 
lon, they  drove  all  the  Jews  there  into  a  synagogue  and 
burnt  them  alive   (1099).     It  must,  however,  be  added 
that  the  calamities  which  had  overtaken  the  Jews  were 
largely  due  to  the  rabble,  and,  with  few  exceptions,  were 


THE  DARK  AGES  91 

not  countenanced  by  the  bishops,  some  of  whom  even  pro- 
tected them  with  energy  and  kindness.  The  German 
emperor,  Henry  IV,  who  had  been  away  in  Italy,  was 
full  of  indignation  at  the  dark  deeds  that  had  been  per- 
petrated in  his  absence,  and  he  even  allowed  the  Jews 
who  had  been  forcibly  converted  to  Christianity  to  return 
to  their  ancestral  faith. 

In  the  second  crusade  (1145),  the  bull  issued  by  Pope 
Eugenius  III,  according  to  which  all  those  in  debt  to 
the  Jews  were  absolved  from  paying  interest  on  joining 
the  crusade,  was  a  bad  incentive  given  by  the  head  of 
the  Church  to  those  who  had  a  score  to  pay  of?  against 
the  Jews.  It  is  small  wonder,  then,  that  the  idea  of 
taking  away  the  possessions  of  the  Jews  found  favour 
even  with  the  authorities,  and  was  countenanced  by  Louis 
VII  of  France.  In  Germany,  the  Jews  along  the  Rhine 
were  threatened  with  the  fate  that  had  befallen  them 
during  tiie  first  crusade,  and  it  required  the  energetic 
intervention  and  all  the  authority  of  the  saintly  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux  to  avert  the  entire  annihilation  of  the  Jew- 
ish population.  The  emperor  Conrad  III  also  took  the 
part  of  the  Jews,  both  from  sheer  humanity  and  to  avoid 
the  devastations  which  resulted  from  the  anti-Jewish  out- 
breaks. The  Jews  obtained  the  privilege  to  settle  in 
a  number  of  towns  where  they  were  able  to  defend  them- 
sehes.  But  even  the  best  protection  they  were  able  to 
secure  for  love  or  money  did  not  save  them  entirely  from 
massacre  and  pillage  or  enforced  baptism.  A  number 
of  Jews  had  taken  refuge  in  the  palace  of  the  archbishop 
of  Mayence,  who  was  also  the  chancellor  and  prime 
minister  of  the  emperor,  but  they  were  murdered  by 
the  mob  in  his  very  presence.  We  find  that  even  Rab- 
benu  Tam,  the  most  renowned  Jew  in  Europe,  was  set 
upon  by  the  rabble,  and,  having  been  dragged  into  a  field 
and  nearly  done  to  death,  only  escaped  martv'rdom  by 
the  timely  intervention  of  a  friendly  knight,  who  saved 
him  on  the  promise  of  receiving  a  horse  as  reward.     This 


92  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

incident  is  typical  of  what  a  Jew  could  expect  in  those 
dark  days. 

With  the  third  crusade,  which  was  promoted  by  Pope 
Innocent  III,  who  had  declared  the  Jews  as  doomed  to 
perpetual  servitude  for  having  killed  Christ,  their  degra- 
dation by  official  authority  of  the  Church  reached  the 
culminating  point  (1215). 

§  5.  In  Medieval  England. — The  very  precarious 
position  which  the  Jews  held  everywhere  is  exemplified 
by  the  history  of  the  Jews  in  England.  Already  in 
Saxon  times  there  were,  no  doubt,  Jewish  merchants  and 
slave-dealers  in  England,  but  they  came  over  permanently 
in  large  numbers  with  William  the  Conqueror  (1070), 
and  settled  in  London  (in  Old  Jewry,  off  Cheapside), 
Oxford  (where  Moses  Hall  and  Jacob  Hall  gave  evi- 
dence of  their  residence)  and  other  parts  of  the  country. 
These  Jews  of  French  origin  and  speech  enjoyed  a  large 
measure  of  freedom  and  prosperity.  Their  peace  was, 
however,  disturbed  in  the  reign  of  Stephen  by  an  accusa- 
tion that  in  Norwich  the  Jews  had  killed  a  Christian  boy 
for  their  Passover  (1144),  and  this  boy  was  turned  into 
a  saint — St.  William  of  Norwich — while  the  Jewish 
objects  of  this  infamous  charge  paid  for  his  canonization 
with  their  lives,  and  their  co-religionists  were  made  to 
suffer  heavily  in  their  goods.  This  blood  accusation  was 
the  first  raised  against  the  Jews  anywhere,  and  was 
shortly  followed  in  England  by  two  similar  charges. 
The  case  of  one  of  these,  St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln,  was  com- 
memorated by  Chaucer  in  his  Canterbury  Tales  ("The 
Prioresses  Tale"),  and  gives  some  indication  of  the  sav- 
age hatred  with  which  the  "cursed"  Jews  came  to  be 
regarded  in  medieval  England.  Nevertheless  the  Jews 
continued  to  prosper  under  Henry  II,  and  rose  to  great 
wealth  and  prominence  in  the  country.  A  most  serious 
set-back  occurred,  however,  on  the  accession  of  king 
Richard  the  Lion-hearted  in  11 89.  A  deputation  of 
leading  Jews  appeared  at  his  coronation  at  Westminster, 


THE  DARK  AGES  93 

but,  on  being  refused  admission  there,  they  were  attacked 
by  the  mob.  Meanwhile  the  report  was  spread  in  Lon- 
don that  the  king  had  ordered  the  Jews  to  be  killed,  and 
the  populace  turned  to  the  Jewish  quarter,  and  began 
their  work  of  murder  and  plunder.  The  Jews  defended 
themselves  in  their  stores  and  houses,  but  during  the 
night  the  houses  were  set  on  fire,  and  the  Jews  who 
attempted  to  escape  were  put  to  death.  King  Richard 
was  powerless  to  stop  the  outbreak,  and  after  his  de- 
parture for  the  crusade  similar  attacks  on  the  Jews  oc- 
curred at  Lynn,  Stamford,  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  Norwich 
and  elsewhere.  The  tragedies  that  were  enacted  in  those 
places  assumed  a  ferocious  grandeur  in  York,  where  the 
Jews  had  taken  refuge  in  one  of  the  towers  of  the  King's 
Castle.  Fearing  treachery  by  the  governor,  however, 
they  afterwards  shut  themselves  up  and  refused  to  admit 
him.  The  Jews  were  thereupon  besieged  by  the  authori- 
ties as  well  as  by  the  mob  lusting  for  their  wealth  and 
blood.  A  monk  celebrated  mass  every  morning  before 
the  citadel,  and,  robed  in  his  white  surplice,  called  on 
the  people  to  destroy  the  enemies  of  Christ.  When  in 
his  imprudent  zeal  this  fiery  ecclesiastic  was  crushed  to 
death  by  a  stone  hurled  at  him,  the  fury  of  the  besiegers 
knew  no  bounds,  and  the  Jews,  to  the  number  of  about 
500,  seeing  that  the  end  had  come,  decided  to  die  by  their 
own  hands.  Josce,  their  head,  slew  first  his  wife  and 
children,  and  the  great  self-immolation  was  concluded 
by  the  death  of  Josce  himself  at  the  hand  of  Rabbi  Yom 
Tob,  of  Joigny,  who,  having  led  his  brethren  in  their 
heroic  resolution,  finally  killed  himself.  The  gates  were 
opened  by  a  few  Jews,  who  had  hoped  for  mercy,  but, 
in  spite  of  their  supplications  for  baptism,  they  were  slain, 
and  the  victors,  disappointed  at  not  finding  the  bonds 
held  by  the  Jews  in  the  Castle,  repaired  to  their  keeping 
place  in  the  Cathedral  and  there  burned  them.  It 
was  for  this  crime  against  the  King's  Exchequer,  and 
not   for  the  outrage  on   the  Jews,   that  some   attempt 


94  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

was   subsequently    made    to    bring   the   culprits   to   jus- 
tice. 

The  belated,  scanty  and  ineffective  protection  afforded 
to  the  Jews  put  them  more  than  ever  in  the  grasp  of 
needy  and  greedy  kings.  Elaborate  precautions  were 
now  taken  to  record  and  check  the  usurious  transactions 
of  the  Jews  on  which  the  king  levied  heavy  imposts  for 
his  own  personal  gain.  For  this  reason,  king  John  fa- 
voured them,  but  presumably  finding  the  regular  revenue 
too  small  for  his  wants,  he  imprisoned  all  the  Jews, 
and  extorted  by  the  most  violent  means  the  wealth  pos- 
sessed by  them.  The  vast  sums  thus  extracted  from  the 
coffers  of  the  Jews  were  too  tempting  for  the  same  profit- 
able measures  not  to  be  repeated  by  both  barons  and 
kings.  It  even  came  to  this,  that  there  was  convened  a 
so-called  Jewish  Parliament  to  which  were  summoned 
the  richest  representatives  of  the  Jewish  communities; 
they  were  informed  that  his  most  gracious  Majesty  re- 
quired 20,000  marks,  which  they  were  to  collect  as  well 
and  as  fast  as  they  could.  The  enormous  exactions 
drained  even  the  wealth  of  the  rich  Jews,  and  the  com- 
petition of  the  privileged  Caorsini,  the  Papal  tax- 
gatherers  and  usurers,  reduced  the  Jews  to  sore  straits. 
Then  an  Act  of  Parliament  (Statute  of  Judaism,  1275) 
undertook  to  reform  the  Jews;  it  forbade  money-lending 
and  directed  the  Jews  to  engage  in  other  occupations, 
which  for  practical  purposes  were  then  closed  to  them. 
Many  Jews  took  to  debasing  and  clipping  the  coin  of  the 
realm,  but  on  one  day  (1278)  all  the  Jews  were  arrested, 
and  293  of  them  were  executed  in  London  and  a  large 
number  also  in  the  provinces.  The  coin  and  their  goods 
went  to  the  king,  and  the  people  took  their  share  in  plun- 
dering the  Jews  on  their  own  account.  The  measure  of 
tribulation  of  the  Jews  in  England  was  now  full  to  over- 
flowing. What  was  wanting  in  rapacity  or  in  honest  objec- 
tion to  the  usurious  practices  of  the  Jews  was  supplied 
by  fanaticism.     Even  one  of  the  most  enlightened  ecclesU 


THE  DARK  AGES  95 

astics  (Robert  Grostcte),  who  had  no  desire  to  rob  them 
of  their  lives,  used  this  singular  argument  in  favour  of 
the  Jews:  "As  murderers  of  the  Lord,  as  still  blasphem- 
ing Christ  and  mocking  His  Passion,  they  were  to  be 
in  captivity  to  the  princes  of  the  earth.  As  they  have 
the  brand  of  Cain,  and  are  condemned  to  wander  over 
the  face  of  the  earth,  so  were  they  to  have  the  privilege 
of  Cain  that  no  one  was  to  kill  them."  What  must 
have  been  the  words  and  thoughts  of  those  wlio  were 
clamouring  for  the  lives  and  souls  of  the  Jews?  Those 
people  certainly  had  their  way,  for  a  decree  was  issued 
banishing  absolutely  and  irrevocably  all  the  Jews  in  the 
realm  and  confiscating  their  belongings.  Any  Jew  found 
in  the  country  after  the  time-limit  of  the  expulsion  was 
to  be  executed  by  hanging.  By  October  1290  about 
16,000  Jews,  preferring  the  bitterness  of  exile  to  the 
shame  of  apostasy,  had  quitted  the  inhospitable  soil  of 
England  to  face  new  dangers  in  strange  lands. 

§  6.  In  Central  Europe. — While  England  was 
spared  all  further  persecution  of  the  Jews  for  the  simple 
reason  that  no  professing  Jew  openly  entered  the  island 
kingdom  until  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  Christians  had  become  alive  to  higher  conceptions 
of  holiness  and  humanity  than  those  prevailing  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  whole  of  Europe  was  during  that  inter- 
val a  witches'  kettle  of  rapine,  murder  and  expulsion.  In 
France,  Philip  Augustus  had  all  the  Jews  in  his  kingdom 
arrested,  their  immovable  property  confiscated,  and  about 
100,000  were  driven  into  exile  (1182).  Yet  such  was 
the  temper  and  greed  of  this  monarch,  and,  more  impor- 
tant still,  such  was  the  unhappy  and  insecure  position  of 
the  Jews,  that  shortly  afterwards  negotiations  were 
entered  into  between  the  king  and  the  Jews  for  their  re- 
admission  into  France  and  the  continuance  of  their 
former  traffic  (1198).  Tlie  Jews  were  again  to  amass 
wealth  for  the  benefit  of  the  king,  to  be  expelled  when 
the  king  suffered  a  twinge  of  his  Christian  conscience  or 


96  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

an  extraordinary  desire  for  money.  Louis  IX  treated 
the  Jews  like  the  pious  robber-knight  he  was,  and  their 
expulsion  by  Charles  VI  in  1394  closed  for  a  long  time 
the  history  of  the  Jews  in  France.  Attempts  subse- 
quently made  by  Jews,  especially  from  Spain  and  Portu- 
gal, to  enter  the  country,  led  to  an  order  of  Louis  XIII 
(161 5)  forbidding  Christians  under  pain  of  death  and 
confiscation  to  shelter  Jews  or  even  to  converse  with 
them. 

In  the  wide  tracts  of  land  under  Germanic  influence, 
the  Jews  lived  on  numerous  volcanoes,  represented  by  the 
caprice  or  helplessness  of  the  numerous  great  and  small 
princes.  The  Jews  had  to  pay  for  all  the  troubles  that 
befell  the  German  people.  The  Jews  were  accused  of 
having  been  in  treasonable  correspondence  with  the  Mon- 
golian invaders;  the  Black  Death  (1348-51)  gave  rise 
to  the  charge  that  the  Jews  had  poisoned  the  wells.  On 
such  occasions,  the  Jewish  communities  of  whole  regions 
were  swept  away  by  fire  and  sword,  and  the  fugitives 
subjected  to  the  most  revolting  atrocities.  The  Jews 
were  still  suffered  only  because  they  represented  a  certain 
value  which  could  be  used  in  raising  revenue.  Of  course, 
in  the  religious  disturbances  the  defenceless  Jews  were 
placed  between  hammer  and  anvil.  Thus  they  sank  into 
a  despised  class,  and,  until  well  into  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, they  remained  out  of  touch  with  the  outer  world, 
and  without  that  dignity  and  influence  which  learning 
and  wealth  might  have  bestowed  on  them. 

Meanwhile  the  harassed  Jews  in  the  German  countries 
had  found  a  refuge  in  the  neighbouring  kingdom  of 
Poland,  where  they  escaped  the  political  convulsions  and 
religious  fanaticism  that  tore  Central  Europe  into  in- 
numerable bleeding  fragments.  Jews  from  Southern 
Russia  had,  no  doubt,  settled  in  Poland  even  before  the 
introduction  of  Christianity  there,  but  it  was  the  German 
Jews  who,  driven  in  all  directions  by  the  frantic  violence 
of  the  crusaders  and  during  the  horrors  of  the  Black 


THE  DARK  AGES  97 

Death,  came  to  Poland  in  large  numbers,  and  even  im- 
posed their  German  language  (which,  with  Slavic  and 
Hebrew  admixtures,  developed  into  Yiddish)  on  the  Jews 
of  Eastern  Europe.  In  Poland  the  Jews  not  only 
enjoyed  peace,  but  many  privileges  of  a  trading  class.  In 
an  agricultural  population  composed  only  of  nobles  and 
serfs,  the  presence  of  the  Jews  was  of  essential  advantage 
to  the  country — a  fact  which  was  long  recognized  among 
the  rulers  of  Poland.  In  a  charter  granted  to  the  Jews 
by  Boleslav  Pobozny,  king  of  Great  Poland  (1264), 
they  were  accorded  important  privileges  which  served  as 
the  basis  of  later  legislation.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  of 
the  Church  to  place  the  Jews  under  a  ban  of  social 
degradation,  the  Polish  Jews  continued  to  prosper,  and 
Casimir  III,  the  Great  (1309-70),  who  was  much  at- 
tached to  his  beautiful  Jewish  mistress  Estherka,  issued 
another  charter  incorporating  the  Jews  among  the  inte- 
gral elements  of  the  Polish  population.  Poland  became 
an  asylum  for  the  hunted  Jews,  the  only  oasis  in  the 
great  barren  desert  of  intolerance,  and  the  Polish  Jews, 
therefore,  rapidly  grew  in  numbers  and  became  of  great 
importance  in  the  religious  and  economic  development  of 
Jewish  life. 

§  7.  Spain  and  the  Inquisition. — A  country  in  the 
other  end  of  Europe,  where  the  Jews  had  risen  to  un- 
paralleled power  and  achievement,  was  feverishly  en- 
deavouring to  get  rid  of  them.  Christian  Spain  bore 
from  the  very  beginning  of  its  history  an  unenviable  dis- 
tinction in  religious  bigotry,  and  this  expressed  itself 
most  emphatically  in  the  case  of  the  Jews.  The  influ- 
ence of  the  Jews  was  evidently  of  such  important  conse- 
quence in  the  Iberian  Peninsula  that  in  the  Christian 
reconquests  of  the  country  the  Jews  did  not  by  any 
means  fare  so  badly  as  might  have  been  expected.  They 
rose  to  high  rank  in  the  various  states,  and  the  later  his- 
tory of  the  Spanish  Jews  presents  a  record  of  brilliant 
contributions  to  civilization  as  well  as  of  sublime  hero- 


98  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

ism  in  the  selfless  attachment  to  their  faith.  The 
Sephardim,  as  the  Jews  of  Spain  and  Portugal  are 
called/  stand  in  a  category  by  themselves  in  the  relentless 
persecution  that  was  waged  against  the  Jews  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  Unlike  their  co-religionists  in  other  parts, 
the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews  were  not  strangers  in 
a  strange  land,  degraded  or  protected  by  their  ruler  for 
his  own  benefit,  but  Spaniards  in  speech  and  thought, 
with  all  the  refinement  and  graces  of  a  high  civilization, 
combining  the  chivalry  and  dignity  of  Spanish  gentlemen 
with  Jewish  humanity  and  enlightenment.  Among  them 
were  men  well  versed  in  affairs  of  state,  and,  as  diploma- 
tists and  financiers,  their  services  were  as  much  requisi- 
tioned by  the  Christian  princes  as  they  had  been  by  their 
Mohammedan  predecessors.  Instead  of  Arabic,  the  Jew- 
ish Spaniards  now  employed  Castilian  as  their  mother- 
tongue,  which  became  so  engrained  in  their  being  that 
even  to-day  this  language  is  still  spoken  and  written  (in 
Hebrew  characters)  by  the  descendants  of  those  Sephardi 
Jews  who,  four  centuries  ago,  left  their  native  country 
for  the  hospitable  soil  of  Mohammedan  Turkey.  Jewish 
men  of  talent  and  genius  continued  the  work  of  their 
forbears,  and,  as  the  chief  translators  and  mediators  be- 
tween the  ancient  classical  and  IVIoorish  cultures  and 
the  thought  of  the  nascent  European  civilization,  these 
medieval  Jews  rendered  a  service  of  unique  value  to  the 
development  of  the  human  mind.  The  natural  sciences 
were  enriched  by  important  contributions,  and  the  era  of 
discoveries,  which  were  to  prove  the  glory  and  downfall 

^The  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews  and  their  descendants  all 
over  Southern  Europe  and  the  East,  belong  by  their  origin,  dis- 
tinctive religious  ritual  and  pronunciation  of  Hebrew,  to  the 
smaller  section  of  the  Jewish  people  known  as  Sephardim  (from 
Sepharad  [Obadiah,  20],  the  traditional  Hebrew  name  of 
Spain),  while  the  Jews  of  Northern  and  Eastern  Europe  and 
their  American  emigrants  are  comprised  under  the  name  of 
Ashkenazim  (from  Ashkenaz  [Gen.  x.  3],  the  Hebrew  appella- 
tion of  Germany). 


THE  DARK  AGES  99 

of  the  Spanish  and  Portuj^uese  nations,  was  advanced  by 
them  both  scientifically  and  financially.  They  stood  fore- 
most as  physicians,  and  their  fame  led  even  persecuting 
Popes  to  employ  them.  Rodrigo  Lopez,  the  physician 
who  was  executed  on  a  charge  of  attempted  poisoning 
of  queen  Elizabeth,  and  vvjio  in  Jew-less  England  is  sup- 
posed to  have  suggested  to  Shakespeare  the  character  of 
Shylock,  was  one  of  those  ubiquitous  Jewish  doctors, 
who,  in  Christian  or  Jewish  garb,  were  prized  at  the 
courts  of  the  most  Christian  princes.  The  deeper  the 
Jews  of  Spain  became  imbedded  in  the  nation,  the  more 
painful  was  the  wrench  which  tore  them  out  with  their 
very  roots. 

The  Church  which  had  enforced  its  canons  and  views 
all  over  Europe,  at  last  turned  to  the  anomalous  position 
occupied  by  the  Jews  in  Spain.  Lashed  into  violent  zeal 
by  the  rise  of  obstinate  Christian  heresies  in  Southern 
France,  the  Catholic  authorities  were  not  inclined  to 
tolerate  the  hateful  Jewish  influence  in  neigbouring 
Spain.  Fiercely  in  earnest,  the  friars  and  other  agents 
of  the  Church  went  about  the  country  inveighing  against 
the  Jews,  their  ill-gotten  wealth,  their  avarice,  their 
deadly  unbelief,  and  these  charges  found  the  more  ready 
credence  among  the  ignorant  and  exploited  populace  as 
the  prosperous  condition  of  the  Jews  had  long  been  an 
eyesore  to  them.  Towards  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  the  Jews  were  attacked  in  one  city  after  another, 
and  suffered  all  the  horrors  which  the  zest  for  plunder 
could  add  to  the  lust  for  infidel  blood.  The  immunity 
and  profit  with  which  these  wholesale  massacres  were 
perpetrated  under  the  encouragement  and  protection  of 
the  all-powerful  clerg^',  led  to  numerous  repetitions  of 
savage  outbursts  by  the  brutalized  Spanish  mob.  Over 
all  these  excesses  was  spread  the  comforting  veil  of 
Christian  zeal,  and,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  frightful 
and  merciless  outrages,  the  Church  would  always  be  open 
to  receive  the  submission  of  the  obdurate  Jewish  souls. 


lOO  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

Before  and  after  these  scenes  of  carnage,  the  eternal  salva- 
tion of  Jewish  souls  was  the  dominating  issue.  Among 
the  most  conspicuous  of  the  agents  of  the  militant  Church 
was  the  Dominican  Vicente  Ferrer,  whose  efforts  alone 
resulted  in  the  conversion  of  35,000  Jews. 

Not  contented  with  the  successes  of  the  Church,  the 
converted  Jew  Joshua  Lorqui,  or  Geronimo  de  Santa  Fe, 
physician  to  Pope  Benedict  XIII,  induced  his  Holiness  to 
order  a  public  disputation  on  the  respective  merits  of 
Judaism  and  Christianity,  or  rather  on  the  falsehood  of 
Judaism,  so  that  the  Jews  might  be  effectively  convinced 
by  Joshua  Lorqui  out  of  the  mouths  of  their  leading 
Rabbis.  This  disputation,  which  took  place  at  Tortosa, 
and  continued  from  February  141 3  to  November  141 4, 
was  opened  by  the  Pope  personally  in  the  presence  of  a 
brilliant  assembly.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  the  dispu- 
tation did  not  have  the  hoped-for  result  on  the  Jews  and 
only  tended  to  aggravate  their  lot. 

Such,  with  variations,  were  the  misfortunes  of  the 
Jews  in  Spain,  but  they  were  to  rise  into  even  more 
ferocious  tragedy  under  the  pious  Ferdinand  and  Isabella, 
at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  successful  efforts 
of  the  Church  had  filled  the  country  with  many  con- 
verted Jews,  who,  by  their  intelligence  and  wealth,  had 
penetrated  all  ranks  of  society,  and  had  even  risen  high 
in  the  Catholic  hierarchy.  The  ecclesiastical  authorities 
suspected,  however,  and  with  good  reason,  that,  while 
outwardly  Christian,  most  of  these  converts  retained  their 
former  Jewish  ideas,  and  even  harboured  a  secret  attach- 
ment to  their  ancestral  faith  and  practices.  The  most 
drastic  steps  were  taken  to  eradicate  this  danger  from 
the  very  heart  of  Catholic  Spain.  The  Inquisition,  that 
monstrous  ecclesiastical  institution  which  stands  con- 
demned at  the  bar  of  history  as  the  vilest  organization 
ever  devised  for  the  enslavement  of  the  human  mind,  was 
in  the  year  1480  let  loose  on  those  new  Christians,  and 
the  dungeon,  the  rack  and  the  stake  dealt  unsparingly 


THE  DARK  AGES  loi 

with  those  on  whom  even  the  breath  of  Judalzing  suspi- 
cion had  fallen.  The  imprisonment  and  torture  of  men 
and  women  were  carried  out  with  relentless  energy,  and 
thousands  paid  the  last  penalty  at  the  stake.  In  the 
country  where  gory  bullfights  are  still  popular  amuse- 
ments, the  burning  of  lapsed  Jews  and  heretics  became 
a  favourite  entertainment  and  a  great  occasion  where  the 
court  and  fashion  met  in  becoming  festive  mood  to  cele- 
brate an  auto-da-fe  (act  of  faith).  In  1483  the  matter 
was  taken  in  hand  by  the  Grand  Inquisitor,  Thomas 
Torquemada,  of  unenviable  memory,  who  spared  none, 
since  even  the  priesthood  and  the  very  Inquisition  were 
honeycombed  with  faithless  Neo-Christians.  Figures  can 
give  no  conception  of  the  demoniacal  terror  exercised  by 
the  Inquisition,  of  the  excruciating  cruelties  enacted  by 
the  torture  of  the  suspected,  of  the  infamous  means 
utilized  to  discover  possible  culprits.  Yet  all  was  in 
vain.  The  numerous  Jews  whom  frenzied  fear  had 
driven  to  seek  refuge  in  the  Church  were  in  their  calmer 
moments  overtaken  by  remorse.  Contemptuously  known 
as  Maranos  (Damned)  by  Jews  and  Christians,  they 
could  not  hide  their  identity  from  their  more  steadfast 
brethren  who  shamed  their  inconstancy,  nor  from  their 
Christian  neighbours  whom  by  the  waters  of  baptism  they 
had  cheated  of  the  excuse  of  robbery  and  hatred.  Ex- 
cuses to  attack  and  rob  were,  however,  often  invented, 
and  the  Maranos,  like  their  former  co-religionists,  were 
overtaken  by  the  fury  of  a  pious  savagery. 

Baffled  by  the  persistent  perverseness  of  its  Jewish 
converts,  the  Church  resolved  on  the  extreme  measure  of 
expelling  all  the  unbaptized  Jews  from  the  Spanish  do- 
mains. A  supreme  attempt  was  made  by  the  Jews  to 
ward  off  the  deadly  blow,  and  their  chief  spokesman,  the 
polished  courtier  and  gifted  scholar  Don  Isaac  Abravanel, 
who  had  held  the  ofl'ice  of  royal  treasurer,  with  honour 
to  himself  and  benefit  to  the  Crown,  offered  to  the  king 
as  a  last  resort  a  ransom  of  30,000  ducats  to  avert  the 


102  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

dreaded  edict.  At  this  critical  juncture,  Torquemada  is 
said  to  have  interposed,  crucifix  in  hand,  with  the  dra- 
matic appeal  to  the  king  and  queen,  "Behold  Him, 
whom  Judas  sold  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  Sell  ye 
Him  now  for  a  higher  price  and  render  an  account  of 
your  bargain  before  God."  The  doom  of  the  Spanish 
Jews  was  sealed,  and  by  the  last  appointed  day,  the  9th 
Ab  (the  ever-memorable  anniversary  of  the  twofold  de- 
struction of  Jerusalem)  in  the  year  1492,  about  200,000 
Spanish  Jews  had  left  their  homes,  the  graves  of  their 
forefathers,  for  ever.  Within  the  whole  range  of  his- 
tory, of  all  the  sublime  manifestations  of  the  grandeur 
of  the  human  soul  in  its  self-sacrificing  attachment  to 
pure  idealism  and  truth,  there  is  no  parallel  to  the  heroic, 
unflinching  resolve  of  these  Jewish  exiles  from  Spain. 
A  word,  and  they  might  have  remained  in  full  possession 
of  peace,  honour  and  wealth,  but  astonishingly  few  spoke 
that  word.  It  had  been  their  country  for  centuries,  the 
country  to  which  their  forefathers  had  added  dazzling 
splendour  and  to  which  they  themselves  were  attached 
with  all  the  fibres  of  their  being.  The  exiles  saw  nothing 
before  them  but  the  dark  hostility  that  would  greet  them 
everywhere,  the  utter  degradation  to  which  their  breth- 
ren had  been  reduced  in  other  lands.  Neverthless,  all 
this  was  braved  for  the  sake  of  the  Lord  God  of  Israel, 
for  the  sake  also  of  the  freedom  of  the  human  conscience 
to  which  civilized  men  of  all  opinions  now  pay  sincere 
homage. 

The  exiles  were  pursued  by  all  the  hardships  and 
dangers  which  hunted  strangers  suspected  of  hidden 
treasures  could  expect  in  those  days  of  heartless  intoler- 
ance and  widespread  robbery  on  sea  and  land.  It  would 
be  too  harrowing  to  set  out  at  length  the  manifold  and 
intense  tribulations  of  these  devoted  refugees.  Many  of 
those  who  had  escaped  to  neighbouring  Portugal,  where 
they  were  admitted  at  so  much  per  head,  were  soon 
afterwards  exposed  to  still  greater  horrors  than  those 


THE  DARK  AGES  103 

from  which  they  had  just  fled.  Whatever  fiendish  cruel- 
ties had  yet  been  left  undone  in  Spain  were  now  carried 
out  in  Portugal  with  all  manner  of  cowardice  and  per- 
fidy. By  order  of  king  Emanuel,  suddenly  organized 
raids  were  made  on  Jewish  children,  who  were  torn  from 
their  parents,  to  be  brought  up  as  Christians;  traps  were 
laid  for  those  endeavouring  to  escape,  if  only  with  their 
bare  lives,  and  they  were  coerced  into  baptism  or  sold 
as  slaves.  Yet  these  fiendish  persecutors,  with  tragic 
irony,  had  ever  the  name  of  Clirist  on  their  lips.  Fortu- 
nate were  those  exiles  who  escaped  from  Portugal  and 
turned  to  Southern  France  and  Italy.  To  the  latter 
country  went  the  eminent  family  of  Don  Isaac  Abravanel. 
More  fortunate  still  were  the  numerous  fugitives  who 
found  a  warm  welcome  in  far-away  Mohammedan  Tur- 
key, whose  sultan,  Bayazet  II,  expressed  his  surprise  that 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  had  impoverished  their  country 
and  enriched  his  by  such  useful  subjects. 

In  spite  of  all,  the  Maranos  still  carried  on  their  secret 
practice  of  Judaism,  and,  for  centuries  afterwards,  num- 
bers of  them  continually  left  for  other  parts  where  they 
could  openly  profess  the  religion  of  their  forefathers,  and 
even  today  the  race  of  Maranos  in  Portugal  is  not 
entirely  extinct.  Meanwliile,  the  Inquisition  in  Spain 
and  Portugal  pursued  uninterruptedly  its  unholy  work, 
and  extended  It  with  the  same  zeal  to  the  regions  of  the 
New  World  that  came  under  their  sway.  Well  Into 
the  eighteenth  century,  burning  stakes  with  holocausts  of 
Jewish  victims  lit  up  the  ever-increasing  decay  and  de- 
composition of  the  once  flourishing  and  mighty  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  nations. 

§  8.  Reaction  Within — The  gathering  clouds  at  the 
end  of  the  eleventh  century,  the  persecutions  under 
Christian  and  Mohammedan  rule,  also  affected  the  tone 
and  temper  of  the  inner  life  of  the  Jews.  With  Moses 
Malmonides  Jewish  thought  and  progress  had  reached 
their  zenith.     For  a  time,  Jewish  learning  flourished  in 


104  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

Provence,  and,  apart  from  the  Kimchi  family  already 
mentioned  as  notable  commentators  of  the  Bible,  special 
reference  must  be  made  to  the  remarkable  family  of  Ibn 
Tibbon,  translators,  who  rendered  a  large  number  of 
Arabic  works,  Jewish  and  non-Jewish,  into  Hebrew,  the 
universal  language  of  the  Jews.  Among  these  transla- 
tions was  also  Maimonides'  Guide,  which,  originally 
written  in  Arabic,  was  now  made  available  for  the  whole 
Dispersion.  The  bold  philosophical  utterances  and  spec- 
ulations of  the  Spanish  sage  were  not,  however,  to  pass 
unchallenged  by  the  enlarged  circle  of  his  readers,  and  a 
violent  polemic  ensued  between  the  supporters  and  oppon- 
ents of  Maimonides.  In  the  year  1233,  a  law  was  issued 
against  those  who  studied  the  Guide  or  other  similar 
philosophical  works,  to  which  dread  sentence  the  sup- 
porters of  Maimonides  replied  with  a  counter-excom- 
munication. Things  came  to  such  a  pass,  that  the  oppon- 
ents of  Maimonides,  headed  by  Solomon  of  Montpellier 
and  Jonah  Gerondi,  appealed  in  their  zeal  to  the  tribunal 
of  the  Catholic  Inquisition,  which  was  then  concerned 
with  the  heretical  Albigenses.  This  court  readily  lent 
its  powerful  aid,  and  condemned  Maimonides*  writings 
to  be  burned.  Such  a  fatal  sequel  aroused  the  indigna- 
tion of  all  Jews  against  the  Rabbinical  zealots  who  had 
dared  to  invoke  the  assistance  of  the  hateful  Inquisition 
in  matters  of  Jewish  faith.  R.  Jonah  himself  was  so 
stricken  with  remorse  that  he  vowed  to  undertake  a 
pilgrimage  to  Palestine,  in  order  to  beg  at  the  grave  of 
Moses  Maimonides  for  the  forgiveness  of  the  master. 
But  the  matter  did  not  end  here,  for  the  Church  now 
felt  itself  called  upon  also  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the 
morals  of  the  literary  productions  of  the  Jews.  A  con- 
verted Jew,  Nicholas  Donin,  submitted  to  Pope  Gregory 
IX  a  number  of  charges  of  immorality  and  blasphemy 
against  the  Talmud,  and,  by  order  of  Louis  IX  of 
France,  a  disputation  took  place  in  which  Rabbi  Jechiel, 
of    Paris,    was    the   leading  Jewish   spokesman    against 


THE  DARK  AGES  105 

Donin,  but,  whatever  the  argument,  the  Catholic  court 
of  inquiry  ordered  the  Talmud  to  be  burned.  Under 
the  threat  of  death,  the  Jews  had  to  hand  over  their 
copies  of  the  Talmud  to  the  authorities,  and  twenty-four 
cartloads  filled  with  those  treasured  books  were  publicly 
burned  in  Paris  (1244),  on  the  same  spot  where  the 
writings  of  Maimonides  had  been  burned  some  time 
before. 

Another  public  disputation  between  a  converted  Jew 
and  a  prominent  Rabbi  leads  us  to  Moses  Nachmanides 
( 1 194-1270),  one  of  the  great  figures  of  the  thirteentH 
century.  In  spite  of  his  clear  mind,  the  troubles  of  the 
times  left  their  impression  on  his  voluminous  writings, 
and  he  heralded  the  age  of  mysticism.  Late  in  life  he 
was  called  upon  to  enter  into  a  public  disputation  on  the 
truth  of  Judaism  with  Pablo  Christiani,  one  of  the  most 
virulent  of  Jewish  converts  to  Christianity,  who  made 
it  the  purpose  of  his  life  to  persecute  and  slander  his 
former  co-religionists.  The  disputation  was  held  in 
Barcelona  in  the  year  1263,  in  the  presence  of  king 
Jayme  of  Aragon  and  his  court,  and  lasted  four  days. 
Contrary  to  general  expectations,  Nachmanides  main- 
tained the  Jewish  cause  with  such  fearlessness  and  dig- 
nity that  the  king  presented  him  with  a  sum  of  money 
to  signify  his  esteem  of  the  Jewish  champion.  But  when 
the  Dominican  judges  spread  the  rumour  that  Nach- 
manides had  been  worsted  in  argument,  he  published  the 
disputation  for  the  benefit  of  those  concerned.  By  this 
he  incurred  the  displeasure  of  the  king,  and,  forced  by 
the  Dominicans  and  the  Pope,  he  exiled  Nachmanides 
from  the  country.  At  the  age  of  seventy,  Nachmanides 
left  all  behind  him,  and  proceeded  to  the  Holy  Land. 
He  became  the  centre  of  a  new  Jewish  life  in  the  desolate 
land  of  Israel,  where  he  passed  his  remaining  years. 

Meir  of  Rothenburg  (1215-1293),  the  most  eminent 
German  Rabbi  of  the  time,  w'ho  also  undertook  a  pil- 
grimage to  Palestine,  was  not  so  fortunate  in  this  respect 


io6  HISTORY    OF    THE    JEWS 

as  Nachmanides.  Under  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  the 
German  Jews  were  so  sorely  oppressed  that  many  of 
their  wealthy  people  in  the  Rhineland  made  up  their 
minds  to  emigrate  en  ?nasse.  Meir  of  Rothenburg 
headed  them,  but  on  the  way  he  was  recognized  by  a 
baptized  Jew,  who  denounced  him  to  the  authorities. 
Meir  was  handed  over  to  the  emperor,  and,  to  put  a  stop 
to  an  emigration  which  would  have  deprived  him  of  con- 
siderable revenue,  he  had  the  far-famed  Rabbi  imprisoned 
in  the  tower  of  Ensisheim,  Alsace  (1286).  If  Rudolph 
expected  that  he  would  extort  much  money  from  the 
Jews  as  a  ransom  for  their  spiritual  leader,  he  was  dis- 
appointed, for,  to  prevent  any  repetition  of  such  a  strata- 
gem, Meir  ordered  his  brethren  not  to  obtain  his  release 
by  any  payment  of  money.  He  passed  seven  years  in 
his  confinement,  and  after  his  death  (1293)  his  body  re- 
mained there  unburied  for  another  fourteen  years,  until 
it  was  allowed  to  be  removed  for  a  large  sum  of  money 
by  a  pious  admirer  of  the  deceased  Rabbi. 

That  the  Jewish  mind  had  now  arrived  at  a  decadent 
stage  was  evidenced  by  the  withdrawal  of  Jewish  scholars 
from  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  which  had  produced  its 
ripest  fruit  in  Moses  Maimonides.  A  thinker  of  genius 
of  a  different  type  was  Solomon  ben  Adret,  of  Barcelona 
(1235-13 10),  a  pupil  of  Moses  Nachmanides,  who  be- 
came the  leading  authority  in  the  Jewry  of  his  day. 
Ben  Adret  concentrated  his  attention  on  the  Talmud, 
and  his  view  of  the  dangers  of  extraneous  studies  was 
marked  by  the  anathema  which  he,  together  with  others, 
pronounced  against  those  who  occupied  themselves  with 
natural  or  metaphysical  sciences  before  their  thirtieth 
year.  That  the  Jewish  intellect  was  nevetheless  slow  to 
succumb  to  obscurantism,  was  shown  by  the  lives  and 
writings  of  Judah  Alcharizi,  the  author  of  Tachkemoni, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  productions  of  medieval  belles 
lettres,  and  Jedaiah  Bedersi  (died  about  1340).  who 
wrote  against  Solomon  ben  Adret  a  defence  of  philosophy 


THE  DARK  AGES  107 

and  science,  and  achieved  lasting  fame  by  his  Examina- 
tion of  the  World  ("Rechinat  Haolam"),  which  has  been 
translated  into  various  lanuagcs,  including  English.  Still 
more  renowned  was  Levi  ben  Gerson  (Gersonides),  or 
Maestro  Leon  de  Bagnols  (1288-1344).  He  was  an 
astronomer  of  note,  and  his  Hebrew  description  of  an 
astronomical  instrument  invented  by  him  was  translated 
into  Latin  by  order  of  Pope  Clement  VL  His  fame 
rests,  however,  on  his  philosophical  work,  The  Wars  of 
the  Lord  ("Milchamot  Adonai"),  which  deals  with  the 
most  thorny  problems  in  a  spirit  of  lofty  independence 
and  originality.  Another  philosopher  of  note  was  Chas- 
dai  Crescas  (1340-1410),  whose  Light  of  the  Lord  ("Or 
Adonai")  represents  an  important  contribution  to  the 
philosophy  of  Judaism,  as  does  also  the  more  popular 
Fundamentals  ("Ikkarim")  of  Joseph  Albo  (died  1444)- 
All  these,  however,  were  the  after-glow  of  the  setting  sun 
of  Jewish  thought,  which  now  came  to  be  dominated  by 
men  like  Asher  ben  Jechiel  (12501327;  a  pupil  of 
Meir  of  Rothenbufg),  and  his  sons,  who  settled  in 
Toledo,  and  introduced  among  Spanish  Jews  that  spirit 
of  German  exclusiveness  which  found  its  whole  intellec- 
tual activity  in  the  intensive  study  of  the  Talmud.  In 
this  they  were  followed  by  Isaac  ben  Sheshet  and  his 
successor  Simon  ben  Zemach  Duran,  who  flourished  in 
Algiers  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth,  and  the  beginning  of 
the  fourteenth,  century.  The  last  is  reputed  to  have 
been  the  first  Rabbi  who,  owing  to  needy  circumstances, 
was  in  receipt  of  a  regular  stipend. 

§  9.  The  Cabbalah. — The  darker  the  world  grew 
for  the  Jews  the  more  they  took  refuge  in  the  intricacies 
of  the  Talmud  or  lost  themselves  in  the  maze  of  mysti- 
cism. The  Jews  were  staggering  under  the  blows  that 
fell  on  them  in  remorseless  repetition.  There  were  the 
great  expulsions  from  France  in  1306  and  1394,  which  re- 
duced the  French  Jews  to  beggary,  and  spread  them 
with    their   misery    far   and    wide;    a   hare-brained    cru- 


io8  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

sade  by  a  wild  rabble  of  the  so-called  Shepherds,  which 
began  in  1320,  some  time  after  a  readmission  of  the  Jews 
into  France,  involved  the  Jews  there  and  in  Spain  in 
untold  bloodshed  and  ruin;  the  Black  Death  and  the 
frantic  excesses  of  the  Flagellants,  which  in  their  turn 
produced  paroxysms  that  wiped  out  of  existence  hun- 
dreds of  Jewish  communities  and  pursued  the  escaped 
fugitives  with  a  bestial  ferocity  which  should  have 
shamed  even  the  Middle  Ages.  The  massacres  in  Spain 
and  the  final  great  expulsions  from  the  Iberian  Peninsula 
were  to  fill  the  bitter  cup  to  overflowing  again  and  again. 
No  wonder  that  the  innate  optimism  of  the  Jews  and  the 
naturally  joyous  character  of  Judaism  deepened  into  an 
unwonted  gloom,  and  produced  an  un-Jewish  asceticism 
which  looked  upon  this  world  in  very  truth  as  a  vale 
of  tears — a  state  of  things  which  could  only  have  been 
worsened  by  the  barbarization  which  later  on  engulfed 
the  Jews  of  Germany  and  Poland. 

The  mystic  lore  of  the  Jews,  known  under  the  name  of 
Cabbalah  (Tradition),  could  claim  ancient  lineage,  since 
the  Essenes,  at  the  time  of  the  Second  Temple,  indulged 
in  esoteric  speculations  which  were  presumed  to  have 
been  handed  down  from  days  of  old  and  were  only 
known  to  the  initiated.  The  work  of  creation  related 
in  Genesis,  and  the  Divine  Throne  described  by  the 
prophet  Ezekiel,  were  the  great  themes  that  exercised  the 
ingenuity  of  mystic  minds,  which  lost  themselves  in 
fancies  ranging  over  the  vast  unexplored  regions  of  theos- 
ophy,  cosmogony,  angelolog>',  etc.  Eastern  wisdom  and 
Greek  philosophy  were  called  into  requisition;  many 
Talmudic  masters,  as  well  as  Philo  and  Paul,  were 
deeply  infected  by  these  ideas,  which,  under  the  form  of 
Gnosticism,  were  to  prove  a  very  serious  menace  to  the 
orthodox  development  of  Christianity.  To  this  was 
added  a  miscellaneous  collection  of  theurgic  and  magic 
notions,  incantations,  etc.,  which  represented,  so  to  speak, 
the  practical  part  of  mysticism  or  Cabbalah. 


THE  DARK  AGES  109 

This  medley  of  Jewish  religious  philosophy  and  spir- 
itual quackery  received  its  most  important  literary  em- 
bodiment in  the  Zohar  ("Splendour"),  which,  ascribed 
to  the  famous  Rabbi  Simon  ben  Jochai  (of  the  second 
century  c.e.),  owes  its  birth  to  Moses  de  Leon,  who 
flourished  in  Spain  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
The  Cabbalists  multiplied,  and  the  Zohar  became  the 
Bible  of  their  mystic  doctrines.  In  their  speculations, 
in  which  God  was  conceived  as  the  Infinite  (En  Soph) 
with  ten  Emanations  (Sephiroth),  there  were  riotous 
fancies  on  the  essence  of  the  Deity  and  the  riddle 
of  life,  and  they  altogether  represented  an  unsuc- 
cessful attempt  to  grasp  the  dim,  floating  shadows 
of  the  eternal.  It  proved,  nevertheless,  a  welcome  hal- 
lucination for  troubled  souls  which  the  merely  intellectual 
studies  of  the  Talmud  and  of  rationalistic  philosophy 
were  not  able  to  appease.  Especially  in  the  East,  Cab- 
balism  found  many  adepts,  among  whom  Isaac  Luria,  an 
ascetic  saint  living  in  Safed,  Palestine,  in  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  was  the  most  remarkable.  It  must 
be  admitted  that  the  Cabbalah  raised  Judaism,  at  times, 
into  the  highest  regions  of  the  most  sublime  spirituality 
and  supplied  that  mystic  element  in  which  Judaism  is 
markedly  deficient,  but  unfortunately  the  Cabbalah  came 
to  be  mixed  up  with  religious  charlatanry  and  degraded 
into  a  grossly  sensuous  attempt  to  lay  hold  of  the  un- 
fathomable for  other  than  purely  spiritual  objects.  The 
efforts  to  press  the  Cabbalah  into  the  service  of  magic 
and  necromancy  debased  it  still  further.  The  fantastic 
nature  of  the  Cabbalah  also  attracted  a  number  of  Chris- 
tian thinkers  (notably  Pico  de  Mirandola  and  Reuchlin), 
some  of  whom  thought  that  they  could  discern  the  dog- 
mas of  Christianity  in  the  theories  of  Jewish  mysticism. 

§  10.  Pseudo-Messiahs. — Among  the  first  notable 
results  of  this  devotion  to  occult  speculation  was  a  strange 
development  of  the  Messianic  idea.  The  darkness  of 
Jewish  life  was  illumined  by  the  hope  that  the  Messiah 


no  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

would  appear  in  his  promised  glory,  and  the  vision  of 
faith  soon  found  tangible  proofs  of  the  wish  for  redemp- 
tion from  the  ills  of  the  world.  More  serious  than  the 
spurious  enthusiasm  was  the  consequent  melancholy 
disappointment  which  followed  it.  One  of  the  first  of 
these  cabbalistic  pseudo-Messiahs  who  played  upon  the 
credulity  of  the  people,  or  were  perhaps  carried  away  by 
their  own  hallucinations,  was  the  Spaniard  Abraham 
Abulafia  in  the  thirteenth,  and  the  German  Asher  Lemm- 
lein  at  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  whose  ap- 
pearances, however,  only  evoked  local  excitement.  Much 
more  interesting  were  the  careers  of  David  Reubeni  and 
David  Molcho,  whose  bold  claims  made  a  considerable 
stir  in  the  world  at  large.  David  Reubeni  entered  on 
the  scene  as  the  brother  and  ambassador  of  a  Jewish  king 
of  Chaibar,  in  Arabia,  and  endeavoured  to  interest  Pope 
Clement  VII  and  king  Juan  III  of  Portugal  in  his 
scheme,  which  was  for  them  to  support  him  with  arms 
and  ammunition  in  the  conquest  of  the  Holy  Land  from 
the  hands  of  the  Mohammedans.  Reubeni  must  have 
made  an  extraordinary  impression  everywhere,  not  least 
on  the  Maranos  in  Portugal,  who  witnessed  his  princely 
reception  in  that  country  into  which  no  professing  Jew 
was  allowed  to  enter.  One  of  these  Maranos,  Diego 
Pires,  returned  formally  to  Judaism,  assuming  the  name 
of  Solomon  Molcho.  Molcho  proclaimed  the  advent  of 
the  Messianic  age  in  the  year  1540,  in  which  Reubeni 
was  to  play  the  leading  part.  After  various  bold  ad- 
ventures, both  of  them  appeared  with  their  pretensions, 
or  plans,  before  the  emperor  Charles  V.  This,  however, 
proved  their  undoing.  Solomon  Molcho  was  burned  at 
the  stake  as  a  lapsed  Neo-Christian  (though  even  at  the 
last  moment  his  life  was  vainly  offered  to  him  for  his 
recantation  of  Judaism),  while  David  Reubeni  was 
taken  to  Portugal,  where  he  was  done  away  with  by  the 
Inquisition. 

Extravagantly  strange  as  were  the  lives  of  these  two 


THE  DARK  AGES  ill 

adventurers,  still  more  remarkable  and  of  much  greater 
influence  was  the  Messianic  enthusiast  and  impostor  Sab- 
bethai  Zebi,  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Born  at 
Smyrna,  Turkey,  in  1626,  Sabbethai  Zebi  became  ad- 
dicted to  cabbalistic  ideas  and  to  those  ascetic  habits 
which  were  then  held  in  high  esteem.  The  advent  of 
the  year  1666,  which  many  Christians  as  well  as  Jews 
considered  to  be  the  Messianic  era  when  the  Jews  would 
be  restored  to  their  ancient  land,  quickened  his  imagina- 
tion and  led  him  publicly  to  assume  the  role  of  the  ex- 
pected Messiah  (1665).  The  support  which  he  found 
among  his  deluded  countrymen  spread  all  over  the  Jewish 
Dispersion,  and  gained  everyAvhere  numerous  and  en- 
thusiastic adherents.  He  was  regarded  as  the  Messiah, 
and  prayers  of  a  florid  style  were  offered  up  for  him  in 
the  synagogues.  Distance  and  rumour  lent  unlimited 
charm  and  force  to  Sabbethai  Zebi's  extraordinary  per- 
sonality, and  the  delirium  took  hold  even  of  people  of 
sober  judgment  and  high  culture,  such  as  were  to  be 
found  among  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews  in  Am- 
sterdam and  Hamburg.  Among  those  who  dared  to 
oppose  the  dominant  Sabbethaians  was  Jacob  Sasportas, 
the  first  Haham  (or  Rabbi)  of  the  newly  established 
congregation  of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews  in  London 
(1665).  Sabbethai  Zebi,  emboldened  by  his  success, 
even  went  so  far  as  to  order  the  change  of  the  Jewish 
fast  days  into  days  of  rejoicing  to  mark  the  arrival  of 
the  Messianic  times.  The  decisive  moment  came  when 
he  left  Smyrna  for  Constantinople,  where  he  was  arrested 
by  the  Turkish  authorities  on  landing.  Even  now  his 
followers  crowded  around  him,  and  were  able  to  main- 
tain him  in  his  imprisonment  with  much  luxury.  He 
was,  however,  denounced  at  Turkish  head-quarters  by 
Nehemiah  Cohen,  a  Polish  rival  to  the  Messiahship,  and 
Sabbethai  Zebi  was  brought  before  the  sultan,  Moham- 
med IV,  whose  throne  Sabbethai  Zebi's  devotees  probably 
expected  him  to  occupy  as  the  king  of  kings.     At  the 


112  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

critical  juncture  the  great  drama  was  turned  into  low 
comedy,  for,  to  save  his  life,  the  Messiah  donned  the 
Turkish  turban  as  a  sign  of  his  conversion  to  Islam. 
Sabbethai  Zebi  u^as  rev^^arded  by  being  appointed  the  sul- 
tan's doorkeeper.  In  spite  of  his  inglorious  end,  he  had 
such  a  fascination  over  his  adherents  that  a  considerable 
number  of  them  v^^ent  over  with  him  to  Mohammedan- 
ism, many,  no  doubt,  suspecting  in  the  apostasy  of  their 
master  some  hidden  meaning  beyond  their  comprehension. 
Numerous  disciples  of  Sabbethai  Zebi  evidently  still  up- 
held his  evasive  claim  to  the  Messiahship,  but  his  double 
character  was,  after  all,  to  end  fatally  for  him.  He  wag 
banished  to  Dulcigno,  in  Albania,  away  from  all  Jewish 
companionship,  and  there  he  died  in  1676.  The  evil  he 
wrought,  however,  lived  after  him.  It  was  with  diffi- 
culty that  the  disappointment  and  shame  of  the  believers 
in  Sabbethai  Zebi  were  obliterated  and  that  peace  was 
restored  to  the  faction-swept  Jewish  communities.  In 
Turkey,  the  Sabbethaians  who  adopted  Mohammedanism 
maintained  themselves  as  a  separate  body,  neither  com- 
pletely Jewish  nor  Moslem,  and  excluded  by  both  on  ac- 
count of  their  double  religious  life.  To  this  day,  a 
number  of  Sabbethaians,  called  Donmeh  (Apostates), 
still  subsist,  mostly  in  Salonica,  as  a  Judeo-Moham- 
medan  sect. 

The  last  of  the  notable  race  of  Messianic  adventurers, 
who  are  of  great  psychological  as  well  as  historical  in- 
terest, was  Jacob  Frank  (born  in  Podolia  about  1726; 
died  at  Offenbach,  Germany,  1791).  He  availed  him- 
self of  the  still  extant  traces  of  the  Sabbethaian  mystifica- 
tion to  create  a  Messianic  movement  in  his  own  favour. 
The  religious  charlatanry  and  gross  licentiousness  of 
these  new  sectarians  moved  the  Rabbis  to  justified  oppo- 
sition, and  the  so-called  Frankists  were  excommunicatecf 
and  denounced  to  the  authorities.  The  Frankists,  find- 
ing themselves  persecuted  and  forsaken,  pretended  to 
Catholic  beliefs,  and  thereby  gained  the  good-will  of  the 


THE  DARK  AGES  113 

Church.  This  patronage,  however,  imposed  on  the 
Frankists  the  necessity  of  entering  the  Catholic  Church 
as  a  body,  and  though  at  first  they  attempted  to  lead  a 
double  life  as  a  separate  sect,  they  gradually  merged  en- 
tirely in  Christianity.  Frank  nevertheless  kept  up  his 
impudent  pretensions,  which  brought  him  great  wealth 
from  his  adherents,  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

§  II.  Italy. — In  three  countries  of  unequal  states  of 
culture — Italy,  Turkey  and  Poland — the  Jews  enjoyed 
a  tolerable  measure  of  tranquillity,  and  even  a  certain 
prosperity.  In  Italy,  especially  under  the  eyes  of  the 
Pope,  the  Jews  fared  not  badly,  comparatively  speaking. 
As  a  rule,  the  Popes  were  more  indulgent  towards  the 
obscure  Hebrew  communities  (shall  we  say,  more  truly 
Christian  towards  them?)  than  the  prelates  and  minor 
officers  of  the  Church  in  other  parts,  nor  were  the  rich 
Popes  subjected  to  the  same  temptations  as  the  impecuni- 
ous kings  and  nobles  who  used  the  Jews  as  financial 
milch  cows.  A  number  of  Popes  entrusted  even  their 
sacred  persons  to  the  care  of  Jewish  physicians,  and 
some  of  the  pontififs  gave  a  generous  refuge  in  their 
realms  to  the  Jewish  victims  of  Christian  persecutors. 
The  prosperity  and  enterprise  of  the  Italian  towns  not 
only  bred  a  more  enlightened  people,  but  also  a  large 
and  opulent  class  of  merchants,  and  even  the  Christian 
money-lenders,  under  the  names  of  Lombards  and 
Caorsini,  had  little  cause  to  envy  the  wealth  of  the  handi- 
capped Jews.  An  incident  which  brought  the  Jews  of 
Rome  into  general  prominence  was  the  conversion  to 
Christianity  of  one  of  their  number,  Petrus  Leonis,  whose 
family  rose  to  great  distinction  in  the  eleventh  century, 
and  in  the  third  generation  produced  an  anti-Pope, 
Heraclius  II.  The  odium  of  his  Jew^ish  descent  was  the 
strongest  objection  against  him,  and  even  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux,  who  had  so  nobly  defended  the  Jews  during 
the  massacres  of  the  second  crusade,  considered  that  the 
blood  which  had  flowed  in  the  veins  of  Christ  and  His 


114  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

apostles  was  an  unexpiable  offence  in  the  temporal  head 
of  the  Christian  Church.  Among  the  Jews  who  bene- 
fited by  the  enlightenment  which  reigned  in  Italy  more 
than  elsewhere  in  Christendom  may  briefly  be  mentioned 
Nathan  ben  Jechiel  (died  1106),  of  Rome,  the  author  of 
the  Aruch,  an  important  Talmudical  lexicon,  while  Im- 
manuel,  of  Rome,  a  friend  of  Dante,  wrote  Mechabberot, 
on  the  lines  of  the  Divina  Commedia  of  the  illustrious 
Florentine.  Obadiah  Sforno  and  the  German  Elias 
Levita  were  among  the  most  important  of  the  Hebrew 
teachers  of  Christian  scholars,  who,  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, turned  to  Hebrew  as  one  of  the  sources  of  inspira- 
tion. Of  the  numerous  Jewish  men  of  letters  who  par- 
ticipated in  the  New  Learning  were  Elias  del  Medigo 
and  Judah  Messer  Leon,  philosophers;  the  Frenchman 
Joseph  Hacohen,  a  pathfinder  in  Jewish  history,  whose 
work  The  Vale  of  Tears  ("Emek  Habacha")  is  a  valu- 
able record  of  Jewish  sufferings  during  the  Middle  Ages; 
Azariah  dei  Rossi,  who  in  his  Enlightenment  of  the  Eyes 
("Meor  Enaim")  displays  an  original  and  refreshing 
acumen  in  Jewish  literary  criticism.  Of  the  sons  of  Don 
Isaac  Abravanel,  who  had  headed  the  great  exile  from 
Spain,  and  whose  diplomatic  abilities  found  considerable 
scope  in  Naples  and  Venice,  Leo  Hebraeus  achieved  fame 
with  his  Dialoghi  di  Amore,  while  the  youngest  son, 
Samuel  Abravanel,  who  occupied  an  influential  position 
at  the  court  in  Naples,  was  a  Maecenas  and  the  centre  of 
a  large  circle  of  Jewish  scholars.  The  Catholic  counter- 
Reformation  which  darkened  the  intellectual  life  of  Italy, 
extinguished  also  the  Jewish  light  that  had  shone  in  that 
country. 

§  12.  Turkey. — The  conquest  of  the  crumbling 
Byzantine  empire  by  the  Turks  proved  of  inestimable 
benefit  to  the  Jews,  who  found  in  the  Turk  a  tolerant 
master,  able  to  appreciate  the  business  capacities,  if  not 
the  scholarly  achievements,  of  the  Jews.  To  the  Jews 
under   oppressive   Christian   dominion,   especially  to   the 


THE   DARK    AGES  115 

refugees  from  Spain,  Turkey  became  a  haven  of  refuge, 
and  Palestine  was  resettled  with  several  communities  to 
which  men  of  renown,  most  of  whom  had  come  there 
from  abroad,  gave  again  a  position  of  some  importance. 
The  greatest  of  these  Rabbis  were  Isaac  Luria,  tlie  master 
of  the  Cabbalah  already  referred  to,  and  Joseph  Caro 
(1488-1575),  whose  Shulchan  Aruch  ("Prepared 
Table")  has  remained  to  this  day  the  authoritative  code 
of  Jewish  law  and  practice.  A  less  enduring,  if  more 
dazzling,  career  was  that  of  Don  Joseph  Nasi,  duke  of 
Naxos.  Born  in  Portugal  and  brought  up  as  a  Marano, 
he  left  his  native  country  after  various  adventurous  pere- 
grinations, and  settled  in  Constantinople  together  with 
his  aunt,  Donna  Grazia  Mendesia,  who,  by  her  vast 
wealth  and  its  enlightened  application  in  many  good 
causes,  as  well  as  by  her  personal  charm  and  culture,  was 
the  most  engaging  Jewish  woman  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Don  Joseph  married  her  daughter  Reyna,  and  by  his 
riches  and  address  rose  to  high  favour  at  the  court  of 
sultan  Sulaiman.  This  influence  was  even  increased 
under  his  successor  Salim  II.  Joseph  Nasi  was  invested 
with  the  dignity  of  duke  of  Naxos,  and  with  the  posses- 
sion of  that  and  surrounding  islands,  as  well  as  of  a  large 
tract  of  land  in  Palestine,  whereon  he  rebuilt  the  town 
of  Tiberias,  and  otherw-ise  promoted  Jewish  coloniza- 
tion there.  He  acted  as  the  recognized  foreign  adviser 
of  the  powerful  sultan  and  treated  with  the  ambassadors 
of  the  Powers  represented  in  Constantinople.  His  au- 
thority can  be  gauged  by  the  fact  that  he  arrested  a 
number  of  French  ships  in  Alexandria  for  non-paj^ment 
of  certain  sums  owing  to  his  aunt  by  the  French  govern- 
ment, and  this  high-handed  action  was  supported  by  the 
sultan  against  the  protests  of  France.  Don  Joseph  was 
also  instrumental  in  inducing  the  sultan  to  engage  in 
a  war  with  Venice,  and  it  w^as  only  the  opposition  of  his 
rivals  at  the  Turkish  court  that  prevented  his  being 
raised  to  the  dignity  of  king  of  Cyprus.     Under  Sulai- 


Ii6  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

man's  successor,  Joseph  lost  the  power  he  had  exercised 
in  affairs  of  state,  but  he  continued  to  the  end  the  active 
and  generous  interest  he  had  always  displayed  in  the  for- 
tunes and  endeavours  of  his  brethren. 

A  rival  of  Don  Joseph  was  Solomon  Ashkenazi,  who 
likewise  wielded  great  influence  in  political  matters.  He 
opposed  Don  Joseph  in  the  war  with  Venice,  and  was 
selected  by  the  sultan  as  the  representative  of  Turkey  in 
the  peace  negotiations.  The  senate  of  the  Venetian  Re- 
public (to  which  city  we  owe  the  word  "ghetto"  as  the 
name  of  the  Jewish  quarter  of  a  town)  were  very  reluc- 
tant to  treat  with  a  Jewish  ambassador,  but  he  was 
eventually  received  with  all  the  pomp  and  ceremony  at- 
taching to  the  dignity  and  the  importance  of  the  occa- 
sion. At  the  same  time  he  was  instrumental  in  having 
revoked  an  edict  of  expulsion  with  which  the  Jews  in 
Venice  were  then  threatened.  Solomon  Ashkenazi  also 
took  part  in  the  diplomatic  negotiations  which  resulted 
in  the  election  of  Henry  of  Anjou  as  king  of  Poland, 
and,  after  Henry's  return  to  France,  he  engaged  in  the 
Turkish  support  of  Stephen  Bathori  to  the  vacant  Polish 
throne. 

§  13.  Poland. — Poland,  including  the  grand  duchy 
of  Lithuania,  was  for  a  long  time  a  country  in  which 
the  Jews  found  a  ready  welcome,  and,  as  practically 
forming  the  middle  class,  they  came  to  be  recognized  as 
a  necessary  adjunct  to  the  autochthonous  population. 
The  Polish  Jews  were  invested  with  internal  self-govern- 
ment, and,  since  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  for 
about  200  years,  they  possessed  a  central  organization, 
the  Council  of  the  Four  Lands  (or  parts  of  Poland), 
which,  like  a  Diet,  met  half-yearly  and  transacted  civil 
and  religious  affairs  relating  to  the  Jews  of  Poland. 
Yet  the  backward  state  of  the  country,  in  which  only 
the  nobles  and  priesthood  enjoyed  a  certain  amount  of 
culture  and  well-being,  had  its  depressing  influence  on  the 
Polish  Jews,  who,  in  want  of  some  contact  with  a  native 


THE    DARK    AGES  II7 

civilization,  eschewed  all  scientific  pursuits  and  concen- 
trated their  whole  attention  on  the  Talmud.  This  was 
not,  however,  with  that  wide  philosophic  outlook  with 
which  the  Talmud  was  treated  by  the  Spanish  masters, 
or  with  the  scientific  interest  which  has  been  devoted  to 
it  as  a  great  document  of  Judaism  in  the  investigations 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  largely  as  an  end  in  itself. 
The  Jewish  idea  of  the  high  merit  of  study  was  exclu- 
sively applied  to  the  Talmud,  and  all  the  fruitfulness  of 
the  Jewish  mind  was  spent  in  creating  a  labyrinth  of 
commentaries  and  an  endless  number  of  supercommen- 
taries,  while  ingenuity  displayed  itself  in  finding  various 
ways  out  of  the  self-created  maze.  Whatever  intellec- 
tual or  even  religious  value  this  might  have  possessed 
was  largely  counter-balanced  by  the  obscurantism  which 
the  one-sided  devotion  to  the  Talmud  engendered. 
Hence  the  vast  energy  and  keenness  of  mind  evidenced 
by  the  great  Polish  Talmudists  did  not  produce  any  origi- 
nal idea  in  Jewish  thought  or  any  quickening  influence 
on  Jewish  life.  On  the  contrary,  the  Polish  Jews,  in 
spreading  over  Western  Europe,  proved  a  retarding  in- 
fluence on  their  co-religionists  in  other  lands,  especially 
as  the  considerable  Jewish  knowledge  they  undoubtedly 
possessed  placed  the  ecclesiastical  offices  and  the  religious 
education  of  the  young  in  their  hands.  This  was  par- 
ticularly the  case  in  Germanic  lands,  which,  for  Jewish 
purposes,  extend  from  Hungary  to  Holland.  Thus 
Jacob  Polak  (the  Pole),  the  most  eminent  Talmudist  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  introduced  the 
Polish  casuistical  method  of  the  study  of  the  Talmud, 
known  as  Pilpul,  to  Prague,  one  of  the  most  ancient  and 
important  communities  in  Central  Europe. 

A  number  of  these  Rabbis  rose,  however,  above  the 
prevailing  objection  to  secular  knowledge.  Among  such 
was  Judah  Low  ben  Bezalel,  of  Prague  (died  1609), 
who  had  gathered  around  him  a  circle  devoted  to  philoso- 
phy  and   science.     Most   prominent    among   them   was 


Ii8  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

David  Gans,  author  of  a  work  on  Jewish  and  general 
history  entitled  The  Branch  of  David  ("Zemach 
David"),  who  was  in  touch  with  Kepler  and  Tycho 
Brahe,  and  translated  for  the  latter  certain  astronomical 
tables  from  Hebrew  into  German.  An  adept  of  profane 
learning  was  also  Yom  Tob  Lipman  Heller  (1579- 
1654),  the  most  cultured  German  Jew  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  whose  Victory  ("Nizachon")  is  one  of  the  best 
Jewish  polemical  writings  against  Christianity.  An 
apologist  of  still  greater  importance  was  in  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Karite  Isaac  of  Troki,  Lithuania,  who 
achieved  extraordinary  fame  by  his  Strengthening  of  the 
Faith  ("Chizuk  Emunah"),  which  attracted  wide  atten- 
tion also  outside  Jewish  circles,  and  was  hailed  by  Vol- 
taire as  an  effective  attack  on  the  Christian  faith.  Zebi 
Hirsh  Ashkenazi,  known  as  Haham  Zebi  (1658-17 18), 
was  a  great  authority  in  his  day,  whom  the  Sephardi 
(Spanish  and  Portuguese)  Jews  in  London  called  in 
(1705)  to  decide  as  to  the  orthodoxy  of  certain  philo- 
sophical utterances  by  their  Haham  (Rabbi)  David 
Nieto,  himself  a  man  of  varied  accomplishments.  Among 
the  distinguished  Rabbis  of  the  eighteenth  century  must 
be  mentioned  Jonathan  Eybeschiitz  (1690-1764),  Chief 
Rabbi  of  Altona,  who  became  involved  in  an  accusation 
of  Sabbethaian  heresy  which  stirred  the  whole  of  Jewry 
in  those  days.  That  this  race  of  Rabbinism  could,  even 
under  adverse  circumstances,  produce  spiritual  leaders 
of  enlightenment — not  to  speak  of  nobility  of  character, 
with  which  this  period  of  Jewish  history  was  no  less 
rich  than  at  other  times — is  evidenced  by  the  life  and 
work  of  Elijah  of  Vilna,  named  the  Gaon  of  Vilna 
( 1 720-1 797),  whose  vast  and  critical  range  of  Jewish 
learning  did  not  exclude  knowledge  of  secular  subjects, 
such  as  astronomy  and  mathematics.  A  master  of  the 
Hebrew  language  was  Moses  Chaim  Luzzatto,  of  Padua 
( 1 707-1 747),  who  might  have  inaugurated  a  new  era 
in  the  national  literature  had  his  wayward  genius  not 


THE    DARK    AGBlS  II9 

been  lost  in  the  mazes  of  the  Cabbalah.  But  Judaism 
was  saved  from  the  dry  rot  which  had  set  in  generally, 
by  the  rationalism  and  scientific  investigation  that  arose 
in  Western  lands,  and  by  the  mystic  movements  which 
made  their  appearance  in  Eastern  Europe. 

§  14.  The  Cossack  Rising. — It  was  under  the  com- 
paratively favourable  conditions  prevailing  in  Poland  that 
in  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  Jews  received 
a  staggering  blow  which  affected  very  seriously  the  whole 
Jewish  organism.  The  Catholic  Poles,  who  ruled  the 
so-called  Saporogian  Cossacks  on  the  Dnieper,  and 
endeavoured  to  extract  both  material  and  spiritual  ad- 
vantages from  these  Greek  Orthodox  subjects,  had 
handed  over  to  Jews  the  collection  of  taxes  which  the 
Cossacks  had  to  pay  to  their  Polish  lords.  These  taxes, 
odious  as  they  already  were,  were  made  even  more  so 
by  fees  on  all  religious  family  ceremonies,  such  as  bap- 
tism, marriage  or  burial,  according  to  Greek  Orthodox 
rites,  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  the  Cossacks  to  enter 
the  Catholic  Church.  To  enforce  the  payment  of  such 
taxes,  the  ke3'S  of  the  Orthodox  churches  were  handed 
over  to  the  agents  of  the  Polish  nobles,  who  happened  to 
be  Jews.  It  was  a  hateful  business,  which  was  to  cost 
both  Jews  and  Poles  very  dear.  In  1648,  a  rebellion 
broke  out  and,  led  by  Bogdan  Chmielnicki,  a  Cossack  of 
murderous  temperament  with  a  personal  grudge  against 
the  Jews,  the  Cossacks  swept  over  the  country,  and,  with 
all  imaginable  ferocity,  exterminated  every  Jew  and  Pole 
who  fell  in  their  hands,  only  those  being  spared  who 
embraced  the  Greek  Orthodox  religion.  Hundreds  oi 
large  Jewish  communities  were  wiped  out  of  existence. 
The  Poles  were  unable  to  offer  effective  resistance,  and 
their  troubles  in  the  election  of  a  king  at  that  time  gave 
the  Cossacks  still  greater  opportunities.  The  rebellion 
dragged  on,  with  an  interruption  of  a  year  and  half, 
from  1 648- 1 65 1,  but,  even  after  the  submission  of  the 
Cossacks,  the  troubles  of  the  Jews  were  yet  by  no  means 


120  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

at  an  end.  At  the  instigation  of  Chmielnlcki,  Russia  en- 
tered into  war  with  Poland,  and  the  Russian  invaders 
exterminated  the  Jews  without  mercy.  The  campaign 
which  the  Swedes  undertook  against  Poland  made  the  lot 
of  the  hapless  Polish  Jews  still  more  sad.  Perhaps  a 
half-million  of  Jews  lost  their  lives  in  the  Cossack  up- 
rising and  the  subsequent  wars.  The  Jewish  communi- 
ties, East  and  West,  became  full  of  Polish  refugees  who 
had  escaped  the  shadow  of  the  sword.  The  ravages 
and  butcheries  of  the  Russian  brigand  gangs,  known  as 
Haidamacks,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
filled  again  the  cup  of  Jewish  sorrow  and  misery  to  over- 
flowing. 

§  15.  The  Chassidim. — The  wretched  condition  of 
the  Polish  Jew^s,  increased  by  the  troubles  consequent  on 
the  rapid  decay  of  Poland,  found  relief  in  a  still  more 
intense  devotion  to  the  comforts  of  faith.  Especially  in 
those  parts  which  had  been  most  severely  visited  by  the 
terrible  ravages  of  the  Cossack  rebellion,  the  harassed 
and  despairing  Jews  turned  eagerly  to  mystic  hopes  of 
better  times.  If  the  stagnant  scholastic  studies  of  the 
Talmudists  brought  little  satisfaction  to  simple  souls 
thirsting  for  a  refreshing  draught  of  the  living  waters 
of  religion,  it  came  to  them  in  a  large  measure  by  the 
rise  of  a  movement  which  at  one  time  threatened  the 
supremacy  of  traditional  Talmudical  Judaism  among  the 
masses  in  Eastern  Europe.  The  founder  of  this  move- 
ment was  Israel  ben  Eliezer,  surnamed  Baal  Shem  Tob 
(the  good  master  of  the  [Divine] Name),  or,  by  his  ini- 
tials, Besht.  He  was  born  in  Podolia  about  the  year 
1700,  and  lived  in  humble  circumstances.  He  left  no 
record  of  his  views,  but,  by  what  can  be  gathered  from 
the  legends  that  have  encrusted  his  fame,  it  is  apparent 
that  he  was  a  mystical  genius  of  a  very  high  order,  to 
which  was  added  a  heart  of  great  humility  and  tender- 
ness. He  swept  away  the  rigid  formalism  and  the  casu- 
istic cobwebs  which  then  overlaid  the  throbbing  vigour 


THE   DARK    AGES  121 

that  had  once  distinguished  the  Talmudical  scheme  of 
life.  Israel  Baal  Sliem  Tob  cared  little  for  the  favourite 
studies,  nor  would  he  join  in  the  sombre  views  of  those 
cabbalists  who  mortified  the  flesh  as  a  service  pleasing  to 
God.  He  declared  the  immanence  of  God  in  man,  and, 
therefore,  saw  God  in  all  the  acts  and  manifestations  of 
life.  This,  the  basic  idea  in  the  religious  conceptions  of 
the  Baal  Shcm,  was  supplemented  by  his  spiritual  exalta- 
tion and  the  intense  fervour  of  his  ecstatic  joy  in  his 
communion  with  the  all-pervading  Creator.  There  were 
some,  the  Righteous  (Zaddikim),  who,  he  felt,  were  in 
the  counsel  of  the  Eternal,  and  could  influence  the  course 
of  that  constant  miracle,  the  divine  government  of  the 
universe.  Thus,  all  the  forms  and  ceremonies  were  of 
little  account  compared  to  that  spiritual  abandon  which 
bridges  the  gulf  between  mortal  man  and  the  eternal 
Spirit.  The  Baal  Shem  was,  however,  no  mere  panthe- 
istic philosopher  or  mystic  recluse;  he  entered  into  the 
joys  and  sorrows  of  his  surroundings,  and  became  famed 
far  and  wide  as  a  thaumaturgic  saint  who  could  heal  the 
bodily,  as  well  as  the  spiritual,  ills  of  mankind.  His 
gracious  intercourse  with  the  common  people,  especially 
with  "publicans  and  sinners,"  as  well  as  many  of  his 
utterances  and  acts,  remind  the  sympathetic,  though  un- 
prejudiced, observer  of  his  great  kinsman  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  whom  he  strikingly  resembled  in  several  im- 
portant respects.  This  is  a  suggestion  which  would  have 
horrified  the  good  Baal  Shem,  but  it  is  no  extravagant 
assumption  that  his  pure  and  unselfish  heart  would  have 
also  most  energetically  repudiated  the  subsequent  mate- 
rialistic developments  of  his  doctrines.  Alas,  for  the 
spiritual  growth  of  man!  Israel  Baal  Shem  Tob  became 
the  founder  of  the  Chassidim  (Pietists),  a  cabbalistic  sect 
which  spread  with  lightning  rapidity  all  over  Poland, 
Hungary-,  Rumania,  and  brought  for  the  moment  a  quick- 
ening influence,  a  comforting  solace,  to  the  weary  exist- 
ence of  the  Jewish  masses.     But  the  beautiful  spiritual 


122  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

ecstasj^  of  the  chosen  few  degenerated  Into  religious  antics 
and  perversions  of  the  many ;  the  Righteous,  who,  by  the 
purity  of  their  souls,  could  see  divine  visions  and  inter- 
cede with  the  Almighty,  became  self-seeking  pontiffs  bent 
on  their  own  aggrandizement.  From  the  first,  the 
apostles  of  the  Chassidim  were  bitterly  opposed  by  the 
leading  Rabbis,  headed  by  the  famous  Elijah,  the  Gaon 
of  Vilna,  but  these  "Opponents"  (Mithnaggedim)  could 
only  hinder,  not  stop,  the  progress  of  Chassidism.  The 
rationalistic  ideas  which  subsequently  found  their  way 
among  the  Jews  of  Eastern  Europe  proved  a  more  effec- 
tive barrier.  Yet  at  this  day  the  Chassidim  are  still 
there  a  numerous  and  powerful  force.  The  original 
leaders  of  the  Chassidim  founded  various  dynasties  of 
Righteous,  popularly  known  as  Rebbes  (Rabbis),  which 
now  subsist  in  considerable  splendour  by  the  lavish  offer- 
ings of  their  pious  adherents  and  devotees.  Apart  from 
this  local  jurisdiction,  the  Chassidim  form  part  of  the 
general  Jewish  community,  and  readily  merge  their  sep- 
aratist doctrines  and  practices  In  different  surroundings. 

§  1 6.  The  Rise  of  Tolerance. — It  Is  an  extraordi- 
nary coincidence  that  on  the  day  following  the  expulsion 
of  the  Jews  from  Spain  (August  2,  1492),  Christopher 
Columbus  set  out  for  the  discovery  of  the  American 
Continent,  which  was  destined  to  play  such  a  great  part 
in  the  history  of  the  persecuted  Jews.  It  is  a  matter  of 
Interest,  showing  the  part  the  Jews  took  in  the  great 
discoveries  of  Columbus,  Vasco  de  Gama,  and  others  of 
that  time,  that  the  money  with  which  Columbus  provided 
for  his  memorable  journeys  was  furnished  by,  or  derived 
from,  Jews;  that  astronomical  charts  and  nautical  Instru- 
ments he  used  had  been  prepared  by  Jews,  and  that  the 
first  European  to  set  foot  on  the  American  Continent 
was  one  of  a  number  of  Jews  who  accompanied  him,  Luis 
de  Torres,  who  was  also  the  first  to  discover  the  use 
of  tobacco.  The  New  World  did  little  at  the  beginning 
to  help  the  Jews,  except  that  a  large  number  of  crypto- 


THE    DARK    AGES  123 

Jews  found  a  refuge  there  from  the  implacable  hostility 
of  the  Inquisition,  until  that  dread  tribunal  transferred 
its  activities  to  that  region  also,  and  the  sky  over  Ameri- 
can    soil  was  reddened   by  the  flaring  light  of  Jewish 
bodies  burnt  at  the  stake  as  an  "act  of  faith"  pleasing 
to  God.     The  autos-da-fe,  punctuated  by  the  burning  of 
Jewish  books,  were  not,  however,  to  last  for  ever.     The 
enlightenment  that  came  with  the  Renaissance,  with  the 
rise  and  spread  of  Protestantism,  with  the  general  rebel- 
lion against  priestly  authority,  was  to  have  its  beneficent 
effects    also    on    the    Jews.     It    came    indeed    painfully 
slowly,  but  we  can  already  discern  its  advent.     In  the 
darkness  which  enveloped  the  Jews  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  Dominican  Jacob  von   Hoch- 
straten,  instigated  by  the  converted  Jew  Johann  Pfeffer- 
korn,  of  Frankfort-on-Main,  brought  up  the  old  accusa- 
tions against  the  Talmud,  which  was  to  be  burnt  again 
"by  authority."     The  matter  came  before  the  emperor 
Maximilian,  and  he  referred  it  to  the  expert  opinion  of 
Reuchlin,  one  of  the  great  humanists  of  Germany,  who 
also   possessed    an    extensive    knowledge    of    the   Jewish 
writings.     Reuchlin's    weighty    pronouncement    was    in 
favour  of  the  Talmud,  and  his  bitter  and  successful  strug- 
gle against  his  ecclesiastical  opponent  forms  an  interesting 
and  important  chapter  in  the  history  of  human  progress, 
and     materially     contributed     to     the     commotion     that 
brought  about  the  Protestant  Reformation  in  Germany. 
This  incident  drew  the  attention  of  the  learned  world 
to  the  value  of  post-biblical  Jewish  lircrature,  and  Chris- 
tian scholars  began  to  take  an  intelligent  interest  in  the 
intellectual  productions  of  the  Jewish  people.     Hebrew 
was  included   in  the  New  Learning  for  the  purpose  of 
arriving   at   the    original    text    of    the   Old    Testament; 
Rabbinical  commentaries  provided  guides  to  the  rational 
study  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures ;  the  Talmud  gave  interest- 
ing and   valuable  information  on   the  Jewish  ideas  and 
tendencies  prevailing  in  New  Testament  times.     Some, 


124  HISTORY    OF    THE    JEWS 

like  Luther,  ultimately  turned  in  anger  from  the  Jews, 
when  they  found  that  they  would  not  see  the  truth  in  its 
Protestant  Christian  form;  others,  like  Eisenmenger,  the 
author  of  Judaism  Unmasked,  turned  their  Jewish 
knowledge  into  gall  by  collecting,  with  a  zeal  worthy  of 
a  better  cause,  every  uncharitable  and  extravagant  utter- 
ance in  Jewish  literature  in  order  that  the  Jews  might 
be  irrevocably  condemned  to  universal  scorn  and  hatred; 
but  Christian  Hebraists  like  Bartolocci,  the  Buxtorfs, 
Lightfoot,  Scaliger,  Surenhusius,  Wagenseil,  Wolf  and 
others  looked  no  longer  at  the  post-biblical  Jewish  litera- 
ture, and  consequently  at  the  Jews,  with  eyes  of  ignorant 
fanatics  to  whom  the  very  Hebrew  letters  were  magical 
forms.  A  work  of  high  importance  and  considerable 
merit  by  a  Christian  divine  was  the  History  and  Religion 
of  the  Jews  since  Christ  to  the  Present  Day  by  Jacob 
Christian  Basnage  (i 706-1 711). 

The  religious  evolution  effected  by  Protestantism,  if  it 
still  retained  a  large  measure  of  intolerance,  brought 
gradually  a  change  in  the  idea  of  uniformity  which  had 
been  the  grand  passion  of  Catholicism.  The  first  af- 
fected by  the  rising  gleam  of  tolerance  were  the  Dutch, 
who  had  liberated  themselves  from  the  Spanish  yoke  at 
such  a  tremendous  cost  of  energy  and  blood.  The 
Maranos  in  the  Iberian  Peninsula,  in  danger  of  the  In- 
quisition, turned  their  anxious  gaze  to  that  little,  heroic 
people  which,  like  the  Jews,  was  battling  with  the  mighty 
forces  of  fanaticism,  and  repeated  attempts  were  made  by 
these  secret  Jews  to  obtain  a  sure  footing  in  Holland. 
After  various  dangerous  and  romantic  attempts,  they 
succeeded.  Holland  became  the  most  important  place  of 
refuge  for  those  secret  Jews  of  Spain  and  Portugal  who 
were  prepared  to  leave  their  country  in  order  to  throw 
off  their  religious  mask,  and  in  Amsterdam  there  arose 
a  great  community,  a  New  Jerusalem,  the  fame  of  which 
spread  over  the  whole  Dispersion.  In  these  Neo-Jews 
we  meet  men  of  nobility  in  social  station  as  well  as  in 


THE   DARK   AGES  125 

chafacter;  many  who  had  played  an  important  part  in 
the  commerce,  politics  and  literature  of  their  native  coun- 
tries; not  a  few  who,  to  escape  the  vigilant  eyes  of  the 
Inquisition,  had  passed  their  days  within  the  walls  of  a 
convent  or  church,  or  who  had  perhaps  themselves  sat  in 
judgment  on  their  detected  fellow-Maranos;  some  even 
who  had  borne  the  priest's  surplice  or  the  friar's  hood 
with  becoming  solemnity  and  outward  piety.  It  was  a 
strange  company,  these  men  and  women,  with  the  high- 
sounding  names  of  proud  hidalgos,  who  assembled  in 
worship  in  some  humble  conventicle,  and  then,  since 
1675,  in  the  noble  synagogue  which  still  forms  an  inter- 
esting Jewish  landmark  in  Amsterdam.  Endowed  with 
much  of  this  world's  goods  as  well  as  with  high  intelli- 
gence and  education,  their  influence  came  to  be  of  great 
service  to  their  co-religionists  abroad.  In  1612  a  com- 
munity of  Maranos  settled  in  Hamburg  under  favour- 
able auspices,  and  in  1622  king  Christian  IV  of  Den- 
mark sent  an  invitation  to  Jews  of  Amsterdam  to  settle 
in  Gliickstadt,  granting  them  above  all  full  liberty  of 
conscience. 

It  was  from  Amsterdam  that  one  of  its  most  eloquent 
and  famous  Rabbis,  Manasseh  ben  Israel,  a  descendant 
of  Marano  refugees,  set  out  for  England  in  1655  to 
induce  Cromwell  to  readmit  the  Jews  into  that  country, 
where  the  race  had  been  proscribed  since  the  expulsion  of 
1290.  The  ground  had  already  been  prepared  by  the 
settlement  in  London  of  a  number  of  Maranos,  who  had 
lived  there  outwardly  as  Catholic  merchants,  and  by  the 
religious  ideas  which  agitated  Puritan  England  at  that 
time.  Manasseh  ben  Israel  was  very  kindly  received  by 
the  Lord  Protector,  and  a  national  Conference  met  at 
Whitehall  to  consider  the  question  of  the  readmission  of 
Jews  into  England,  but  the  commotion  which  the  matter 
aroused  rendered  this  assembly  abortive.  Nevertheless, 
the  resettlement  of  the  Jews  in  England  was  tacitly  per- 
mitted by  Cromwell    (1657),  who,  with  the  eye  of  a 


126  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

statesman,  saw  the  advantages  that  would  accrue  to  the 
British  realm  from  the  wealth,  enterprise  and  good-will 
of  the  Jews.  Manasseh  ben  Israel,  who  had  influenced 
English  public  opinion  in  favour  of  the  Jews  by  his  able 
work  Vindicia  Jud<£orum,  was  dismissed  home  by  Crom- 
well with  a  state-pension  of  £ioo  a  year,  but  he  died 
on  his  way  back  to  Amsterdam  (1657).  Charles  II 
confirmed  the  Jewish  position  in  England,  and  the  Jew- 
ish community  of  London  became  gradually  one  of  the 
most  influential  in  the  Dispersion.  After  worshipping  in 
a  private  house  in  Creechurch  Lane,  ofif  Leadenhall 
Street,  the  congregation  of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews, 
"Shaar  Hashamaim"  ("The  Gate  of  Heaven"),  grew 
into  such  numbers  that  in  1701  they  built  the  synagogue 
in  Bevis  Marks,  near  Bishopsgate,  which,  as  the  oldest 
synagogue  in  England  and  associated  with  many  proud 
memories,  is  still  an  object  of  great  interest  and  impor- 
tance. The  Jewish  activities  that  clustered  around  the 
sanctuary  in  Bevis  Marks  made  this  community  for 
several  generations  the  centre  of  the  intellectual  and 
political  life  of  the  Jews  in  England  and  the  connecting 
link  between  Europe  and  the  Jews  who  had  settled  in 
the  British  colonies  in  America. 

The  Dutch  and  English  conquests  in  Central  and 
South  America,  which  deprived  the  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese nations  of  many  of  their  possessions  there,  brought 
to  light  considerable  numbers  of  secret  Jews,  who,  under 
milder  regimes,  openly  acknowledged  their  Jewish  con- 
victions. Apart  from  the  settlement  of  Jews  in  the 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  colonies,  the  earliest  references 
to  which  are  to  be  sought  in  the  transportation  of  forc- 
ibly baptized  Jewish  children  from  Portugal  and  in  the 
local  records  of  the  Inquisition,  the  Jews  found  refuge 
in  the  various  Dutch,  French  and  English  colonies,  and 
everyw^here  took  a  prominent  and  honourable  share  in 
the  commercial  and  political  activities  of  the  New 
World.     In  1642  about  600  Jews  sailed  from  Holland 


THE    DARK    AGES  127 

to  Pernambuco,  Brazil,  from  which  colony  they  were 
expelled  when  Portugal  retook  it  from  the  Dutch  in  1654. 
A  small  number  of  the  refugees  found  their  way  to  New 
York  (then  New  Amsterdam),  from  which  the  Dutch 
governor  Stuyvesant  tried  unsuccessfully  to  exclude  them, 
and  some  of  the  them  settled  in  Newport,  Rhode  Island, 
the  ancient  Jewish  cemetery  of  which  forms  the  subject 
of  one  of  Longfellow's  best-known  poems.  The  congre- 
gation of  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews,  "Shearith  Israel" 
("The  Remnant  of  Israel"),  in  New  York,  was  estab- 
lished in  1680,  and  is  still  in  a  flourishing  condition. 
In  all  these  settlements  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews 
played  the  leading  part,  even  some  time  after  the  immi- 
gration of  German  and  Polish  Jews  had  set  in,  and  the 
wealth,  social  standing  and  public  spirit  of  the  first  Jew- 
ish settlers  largely  influenced  the  favourable  estimate 
which  was  formed  of  them  in  the  early  colonial  days. 

§  17.  Spinoza. — Of  the  men  of  distinction  in  the 
new  communities  of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews  in 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  space  only  per- 
mits a  short  reference  to  Benedict  (Baruch)  Spinoza 
(1632-1677),  who,  in  spite  of  his  teachings  and  his  life — 
or  because  of  them — must  be  regarded  as  one  of  the 
glories  of  the  people  of  Israel.  Born  in  Amsterdam  of 
Marano  descent,  he  was  brought  up  in  the  schools  of  the 
Amsterdam  Jewish  congregation,  and  acquired  under 
Manasseh  ben  Israel  and  other  Rabbis  a  large  measure 
of  Jewish  learning.  In  his  mental  equipment,  Moses 
Maimonides,  Levi  ben  Gerson,  Chasdai  Crescas  and  other 
Jewish  philosophers  occupied  the  first  place,  but  his  bold 
mind  led  him  into  independent  paths.  Spinoza  turned 
against  the  authority  of  Judaism,  away  from  its  concep- 
tions and  practices,  and  the  leaders  of  the  communit}^ 
alarmed  at  his  expressed  views,  first  endeavoured  to  pla- 
cate him  by  an  annual  stipend  of  a  thousand  gulden, 
and,  failing  in  this,  they  expelled  him  by  excommunica- 
cation   (1656).     It  was  one  of  those  stern  acts  of  self- 


128  HISTORY    OF    THE    JEWS 

purification  which  the  Jews  of  Spain  and  Portugal  had 
learned  by  their  own  bitter  experience,  though  we  may 
perhaps  credit  them  with  the  legitimate  fear  that  the 
dangerous  views  or  acts  of  one  of  their  number  might 
seriously  affect  the  slender  basis  of  their  newly-won  tol- 
eration. Spinoza  took  his  excommunication  resignedly 
and  withdrew  to  the  Hague,  where  he  provided  for  his 
wants  by  polishing  lenses.  If  the  fame  of  his  genius 
spread  already  in  his  lifetime — he  refused,  among  other 
tempting  offers,  the  chair  of  philosophy  at  the  Heidel- 
berg University,  as  it  would  have  fettered  his  indepen- 
dence— it  was  afterwards  that  his  philosophy  be 
came  one  of  the  corner-stones  of  miodern  thought.  High 
in  the  firmament  of  pure  thought,  Spinoza  has  his  throne 
among  the  greatest  master-minds  of  all  time.  The  man 
who  was  once  decried  and  dreaded  as  an  atheist,  has  been 
recognized  as  "a  God-intoxicated  Jew."  He  founded  no 
school  and  left  few  disciples,  yet  Leibnitz,  Goethe  and 
other  intellectual  giants  did  not  disdain  to  sit  at  the  feet 
of  this  sage  of  the  Amsterdam  ghetto.  Even  more  than 
this:  serene  as  was  the  mind  of  Spinoza,  so  was  also  his 
life, 

§  1 8,  In  the  Middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury.— While  Europe  was  growing  out  of  the  swaddling- 
clothes  of  ecclesiasticism  and  awaking  to  a  sense  of  man- 
hood ;  while  the  French  encyclopedists  were  accumulating 
the  forces  which  were  to  burst  and  sweep  away  the  dams 
of  bigotry  and  servitude ;  even  though  the  Jewish  people 
itself  had  already  contributed  to  civilization  one  of  the 
greatest  luminaries  of  modern  thought,  the  Jews  were 
still  living  in  their  Dark  Ages.  Not  only  in  Catholic 
countries,  but  likewise  among  Protestant  nations  which 
had  clamoured  and  fought  for  the  inalienable  rights  of 
the  human  conscience,  the  Jew  was  still  an  outcast  for 
conscience'  sake.  By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, the  Jews  were  yet  everywhere  a  proscribed  race, 
just  as  if  Pope  Innocent  III,  who  had  declared  that  the 


THE    DARK    AGES  I29 

Jews  were  branded  with  the  mark  of  Cain,  were  still 
the  all-powerful  master  of  Europe. 

In  spite  of  certain  glimpses  of  light  which  had  fallen 
on  the  Jewish  people,  its  outlook  was  a  verj'  gloomy  one 
indeed.  The  stray  rays  of  toleration  had  reached  main- 
ly those  few  Jewish  refugees  from  the  Iberian  Peninsula, 
who,  owing  to  their  wealth  and  extensive  influence  in 
all  the  great  marts  of  the  Old  and  New  World,  had  be- 
come more  or  less  welcome  guests  among  the  trading 
rivals  of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  nations.  In  Poland, 
the  most  populous  Jewish  centre,  the  Cossack  and  other 
troubles  had  reduced  the  race  to  barbarism  and  misery; 
in  neighbouring  Austria,  the  Jews  were  barely  allowed  to 
vegetate,  and,  in  1745,  the  empress  Maria  Theresa 
hunted  them  out  of  Bohemia  and  Moravia.  Where  per- 
secution was  not  in  an  active  state,  the  Jews  remained 
burdened  with  the  general  opprobrium  witii  which  con- 
tempt, the  sickly  offspring  of  the  former  religious  fana- 
ticism, had  loaded  them.  Centuries  of  grinding  oppres- 
sion had  brought  the  Jews  very  low.  In  Germanic 
lands  there  arose  now  and  again  a  so-called  court-Jew, 
who,  entrusted  WMth  the  financial  affairs  of  one  of  the 
numerous  princes,  was  perhaps  at  times  able  to  secure 
some  little  administrative  relief  for  his  co-religionists. 
But,  as  happened  in  the  cases  of  Lippold,  the  physician 
and  financial  agent  of  Joachim  II  of  Brandenburg,  and 
Joseph  Siiss  Oppenheimer,  the  minister  of  duke  Charles 
Alexander  of  Wurtemberg  (both  of  whom  were  executed 
with  great  ignominy  on  trumped-up  charges  in  1573  and 
1738  respectively),  the  fall  of  the  Jewish  favourite  usu- 
ally dragged  the  whole  community  into  his  ruin.  As  a 
whole,  the  Jews  remained  a  class  of  social  pariahs,  petty 
traders  or  artisans,  speaking  a  mongrel  German,  with  no 
ambitions  outside  their  own  small  and  despised  circles. 
Their  degradation  was  stamped  officially  by  the  Leibzoll, 
or  a  special  poll-tax  which  Jews  had  to  pay  in  their  pas- 
sage from  one  into  another  of  the  numerous  principali- 


I30  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

ties ;  by  the  rigid  institution  of  the  "tolerated"  and  "pro- 
tected" Jews;  by  the  humiliating  and  vexatious  regula- 
tions and  limitations  regarding  the  residence  of  Jews, 
and  by  the  restrictions  which  were  even  placed  on  the 
number  of  Jewish  marriages — all  Pharaonic  laws  in- 
tended to  repress  the  expansion  of  the  Jewish  communities 
and  to  break  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  body  of  the  Jew. 
Their  intellectual  condition  had  also  sunk  to  a  low  ebb, 
and  even  the  religiously  obligatory  instruction  in  He- 
brew subjects  was  carried  on  in  mean  surroundings,  in 
a  mechanical  manner,  by  men  incompetent  for  any  other 
calling.  Religion  still  remained,  but  it  had  assumed  the 
garb  of  its  professors,  and,  in  any  case,  it  had  lost  that 
depth  of  interpretation  and  breadth  of  application  which 
could  alone  ensure  for  Judaism  the  rank  of  a  world-re- 
ligion in  modern  civilization. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Era  of  Assimilation 

§  I.     The  Modern  Epoch. — By  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth   century,    when    the  status   of   the  Jews   had 
reached  its  lowest  water-mark,  they  entered  on  a  period 
of  their  history  which,  in  its  achievements  and  potenial- 
ities,  was  to  rival,  and,  in  certain  respects,  to  eclipse,  the 
most  brilliant  periods  since  the  fall  of  the  Jewish  state. 
If  the  historian  of  the  emancipation  of  the  Israelites  from 
the  Egyptian  yoke  has  had  to  have  recourse  to  supernat- 
ural intervention,  a  more  rationalistic  age  must  seek  in 
the  extraordinary  vitality  and  genius  of  the  Jewish  people 
for  the  causes  of  their  rapid  and  marvellous  evolution 
during  the  last  hundred  years.     Leaving  aside  the  un- 
productive millions  in   lands  of  oppression,   the  enfran- 
chised Jews  have  produced  a  remarkable  host  of  men  of 
international  distinction  in  all  walks  of  life,  in  science, 
arts  and  letters.     This  progress  is  even  more  strikingly 
apparent  in  the  field  of  politics,  where  Jews  are  natural- 
ly most  exposed  to  prejudice  and  obstruction.     The  same 
generation  that  had  been  subjected  in  Germany  to  the 
degrading  poll-tax,  saw  the  rise  of  Heinrich  Heine,  the 
greatest  lyrical  poet  of  the  German  tongue,  and  of  Lud- 
ivig  Borne,  the  most  prominent  German  political  writer 
of  the  day.    Already  in  1848,  Gabriel  Riesser,  the  grand- 
son of  a  Lithuanian  Rabbi,  was  a  Vice-President  of  the 
memorable  German  Parliament  of  that  year,  and  a  mem- 
ber of  its  deputation  which  offered  to  Frederick  William 
IV  the  crown  of  the  German  empire.  Adolphe  Cremieux, 

131 


132  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

born  in  1796,  almost  under  the  shadow  of  the  medieval 
Jewish  disabilities,  became  in  1848  a  member  of  the 
Provisional  Government  of  France,  again  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  National  Defence  in  the  critical  days  of  1 870-1 ; 
England  received  its  greatest  Imperialist  stateman  in 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  who,  though  nominally  a  Christian, 
was  a  Jew  by  inclination  as  well  as  by  birth ;  in  Rome, 
the  conqueror  of  ancient  Judea,  the  Italian  army  has  been 
governed  by  a  Jewish  general,  Giuseppe  Ottolenghi,  and 
at  the  same  time  that  a  Jew,  Luigi  Luzzatti,  was  prime 
minister  of  Italy,  the  capital  of  Catholic  Christendom, 
where  only  forty  years  ago  the  Jews  were  huddled  to- 
gether in  a  few  miserable  lanes  and  dark  courts,  was  be- 
ing administered  by  a  Jewish  chief  magistrate,  Ernesto 
Nathan,  Not  only  have  the  Rothschilds  and  other  Jew- 
ish bankers  long  maintained  the  leading,  and  a  most  hon- 
ourable, position  in  international  finance,  but  two  Jews, 
Karl  Marx  and  Ferdinand  Lassalle,  were  the  founders 
of  Socialism,  undoubtedly  the  greatest  movement  of  mod- 
ern times,  which  to  many  millions  of  both  hemispheres  has 
become  a  new  religion  that  both  guides  and  uplifts  them. 
Against  all  this,  political  parties  are  doing  the  Jews  the 
unwelcome  honour  of  basing  their  existence  on  opposi- 
tion to  Jewish  influences,  which,  on  the  European  Con- 
tinent, are  found  in  all  struggles  for  light,  justice  and 
truth.  It  is  owing  to  the  recognition  of  this  fact  that 
in  Russia  the  greater  half  of  the  Jewish  race  is  still 
crushed  beneath  the  yoke  of  barbarous  legislation  and 
administration.  Such  a  transformation  of  a  scattered 
people  of  pariahs  into  one  of  the  most  progressive  sec- 
tions of  Western  civilization,  in  spite  of  all  the  auto- 
cratic and  ecclesiastical  forces  arrayed  against  them,  in 
spite  of  all  the  ancient  and  deeply  rooted  social  and  re- 
ligious odium  and  prejudice  which  still  cling  to  them, 
is  without  parallel  in  modern  history. 

§  2.     The  Growth  of  Jewish  Population. — In  ad- 
dition to  this  mental  vigour  of  the  old  race,  there  is  a 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  133 

striking  physical  vitality  which  has  manifested  itself  in 
the  numerical  expansion  of  the  Jewish  people  within  the 
last  hundred  years.  Exact  figures  are  generally  wanting 
in  Jewish  statistics,  but  while  at  the  beginning  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  Jewish  population  in  Europe  was 
computed  by  Basnage  to  be  1,360,000,  and  the  historian 
Jost  estimated  the  Jews  all  over  the  world  in  1840  to 
be  somewliat  above  three  million  souls,  it  is  now  (1911) 
near  twelve  millions — this  in  spite  of  the  serious  losses 
occasioned  by  religious  defections,  inter-marriages  with 
non-Jews,  etc.  Of  about  nine  and  half  million  Jews 
to  be  found  in  Europe  there  are  approximately  six  mil- 
lions in  the  Russian  empire,  two  millions  in  Austria- 
Hungary,  600,000  in  Germany,  250,000  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland.  Without  appreciably  affecting  the  growth 
of  the  Jewish  population  in  Eastern  Europe,  the  flow  of 
emigration  from  those  parts  has  rapidly  increased  the 
number  of  Jews  in  the  United  States  of  America  to  about 
two  million  souls,  of  whom  close  on  a  million  are  congre- 
gated in  the  city  of  New  York,  Next  to  New  York,  the 
largest  community  is  to  be  found  in  Warsaw,  with  its 
Jewish  population  of  350,000.  The  quickened  immigra- 
tion into  Palestine  since  the  last  two  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  also  led  to  the  strengthening  of  the 
Jewish  element  there,  and  of  the  80,000  Jews  in  Pal- 
estine (about  twelve  per  cent,  of  the  population)  the 
40,000  Jews  in  Jerusalem  comprise  two-thirds  of  the 
total  inhabitants  of  the  ancient  Jewish  capital. 

§  3.  Moses  Mendelssohn.  —  The  revolutionary, 
epoch-making  change  in  the  outlook  and  fortunes  of  the 
Jews  was  brought  about  in  Germany,  and  by  one  who, 
both  by  his  intellect  and  character,  was  well  fitted  to 
strike  the  generous  imagination  of  the  Christian  world, 
and  to  usher  in  the  social  and  political  regeneration  of 
his  own  people.  Moses  Mendelssohn,  to  whom  modern 
Jewry  owes  its  evolution  from  a  strange  element,  out  of 
touch  with  the  interests  and  aspirations  of  its  surround- 


134  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

ings,  into  an  integral  part  of  European  civilization,  was 
born  in  Dessau,  in  1729,  as  the  son  of  a  poor  scribe  of 
scrolls  of  the  Law.  At  the  age  of  fourteen,  Moses,  the 
son  of  Mendel  (Mendelssohn),  betook  himself  on  foot 
from  Dessau  to  Berlin  in  order  to  seek  wisdom  in  the 
great  city,  where  the  poor  Jew-boy  was  only  admitted 
by  referring  to  Rabbi  David  Frankel,  his  former  teacher, 
who  had  become  Chief  Rabbi  of  Berlin.  Moses  Men- 
delssohn, by  sheer  force  of  his  own  brilliant  mind  and 
the  integrity  of  his  heart,  rose  to  the  front  rank  of  the 
German  literary  and  philosophical  world.  He  became 
an  intimate  friend  of  Lessing,  who  took  Mendelssohn  as 
his  model  in  the  fine  type  of  a  Jew  he  placed  before  the 
world  in  Nathan  der  Weise — a  drama  which  represents 
the  most  effective  plea  on  behalf  of  Mendelssohn's  people 
— and  among  those  who  vied  to  do  him  honour  was 
Kant,  against  whom  Mendelssohn  had  successfully  com- 
peted in  a  prize-essay  on  a  philosophical  theme.  The 
world  looked  with  surprise  at  this  Jew,  who  was  one  of 
the  most  polished  German  stylists  and  among  its  pro- 
foundest  philosophers — and  who  yet  remained  true  to  the 
religious  faith  of  the  Jewish  people.  If  Mendelssohn's 
Phcedon,  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  which  became 
one  of  the  most  fascinating  books  of  the  day,  earned  for 
him  the  title  of  the  German  Socrates,  his  work  on  be- 
half of  his  brethren-in-faith  won  him  undying  fam^e. 
Once  more  the  Bible  was  to  be  the  source  of  the  re- 
juvenation of  the  people  which  gave  the  great  Book  to  the 
world.  Mendelssohn  translated  the  Jewish  Scriptures 
into  German  (transcribed  in  Hebrew  characters),  and 
thereby  German  became  the  medium  for  introducing  the 
Jews  into  the  rich  culture  of  one  of  the  great  nations  of 
modern  Europe.  From  the  Rhine  to  the  Vistula  and  all 
along  the  Danube,  Judaism  now  assumed  a  German 
hue;  the  devotees  of  the  new-born  Englightenment  (Has- 
kalah)  were  followers  of  IVIendelssohn,  and  its  centre  was 
Berlin.     But  as  Mendelssohn  himself  had  imbibed  his 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  135 

first  philosophical  conceptions  form  Maimonides'  Guide 
of  the  Perplexed,  and  added  to  the  German  translation  of 
the  Bible  a  Hebrew  commentary  ("Biur")  by  various 
hands,  so  also  his  disciples  turned  their  attention  to  the 
ancient  language  and  derived  new  strength  by  contact 
with  an  inspiring  past.  In  his  great  work  Jerusalem, 
Mendelssohn  put  before  Jew  and  Christian  a  rationalis- 
tic conception  of  Judaism,  showing  the  compatibility  of 
its  doctrines  and  practices  with  modern  thought,  and  he 
also  set  out  his  religious  ideas  in  Morning  Hours,  or 
Lectures  on  the  Existence  of  God  (1785).  His  high 
standing  within  and  without  the  Jewish  community  made 
him  the  object  of  attack  on  the  part  of  zealous  Chris- 
tians, but  the  loftiness  and  geniality  of  his  personal  char- 
acter, no  less  than  the  reasoned  steadfastness  to  his  an- 
cestral religion,  inspired  respect  even  among  his  opponents 
and  reflected  most  favourably  on  his  co-religionists.  The 
emancipation  of  the  Jews  from  the  shackles  of  medieval 
barbarism  and  intolerance  was  thereby  sounded  in  no 
uncertain  tones,  and  they  exerted  their  influence  even 
beyond  the  confines  of  Germany.  Thus  the  Jews  en- 
tered on  a  new  era  in  their  history,  and  it  was  Mendels- 
sohn who  indicated  the  problems  that  have  agitated  Jew- 
ish life  and  thought  to  the  present  day. 

The  most  extraordinary  and  original  Jewish  thinker  in 
touch  with  Mendelssohn  was  Solomon  Maimon  (1754- 
1800).  Born  in  a  Lithuanian  townlet,  married  at  the 
age  of  twelve,  earning  a  living  as  a  dominie  to  the  chil- 
dren of  a  village  publican,  Solomon  Maimon  resolved  to 
satisfy  his  craving  for  knowledge  by  proceeding  to  Ber- 
lin. Less  fortunate  than  Moses  Mendelssohn,  he  was 
not  admitted  by  the  gate-keeper,  and  had  to  wander  about 
for  some  time  as  a  vagabond.  He  was,  however,  enabled 
to  secure  the  desired  protection  of  Mendelssohn,  and  with 
it  he  entered  on  those  literary  activities  which  were  to 
ensure  him  a  high  rank  in  the  realm  of  philosophy.  Kant 
acknowledged   that  in  Die   Trnnsccndentale  Philosophie 


136  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

(1790)  Solomon  Maimon  had  shown  himself  the  most 
penetrating  of  all  his  critics.  His  fame  spread,  and  he 
received  marked  attention  from  Schiller,  Goethe  and 
other  lights  of  his  time,  but  his  intellectual  genius  could 
not  replace  the  moral  fibre  he  sadly  lacked,  and  this  only 
accentuated  the  striking  contrast  he  presented  to  Men- 
delssohn. 

§  4.  The  Enlightenment  {Haskalah)  and  Neo- 
Hebrew  Literature. — The  first  direct  effect  of  Men- 
delssohn's activities  was  the  revival  of  Hebrew  as  a 
medium  of  modern  culture.  The  circle  that  had  gath- 
ered around  him  became  the  centre  of  a  general  move- 
ment, the  Enlightenment  (Haskalah),  the  waves  of  which 
have  not  yet  spent  themselves.  The  purpose  of  it  was 
to  bring  into  the  ghetto  the  best  thought  of  the  day  in 
the  old  and  acceptable  language  of  the  Jews,  which  had 
never  been  abandoned  by  them.  The  Hebrew  commentary 
("Biur")  to  Mendelssohn's  Bible  marked  the  first  step; 
a  periodical,  Hameassef  ("The  Collector"),  founded  in 
1784,  grouped  together  a  number  of  Neo-Hebraists  in 
Germany,  Austria  and  Poland,  who  became  known  by 
the  name  of  Meassefim.  These,  as  well  as  the  Enlight- 
ened (Maskilim)  generally,  expended  their  literary  ef- 
forts in  the  Hebrew  translation  or  imitation  of  foreign 
classics,  and  in  the  criticism  of  the  many  superstitions 
and  abuses  which  then  dragged  down  Jewish  life.  Such 
attempts  at  reform  created,  of  course,  a  cleavage  be- 
tween the  old  and  the  new  order.  Mendelssohn  himself 
had  to  brave  the  determined  opposition  of  those  who 
feared  that  the  new  departure  would  bring  about  the 
extinction  of  the  cherished  faith  of  Israel,  and  their  fore- 
bodings were  justified  by  the  lapse  and  apostasy  of  many 
of  those  who  stood  for  the  Enlightenment.  These  strug- 
gles filled  out  the  intellectual  life  in  Eastern  Europe  for 
over  a  century,  but  it  may  be  said  that  the  modern  Jew- 
ish humanists  have  won  the  day.  It  is  now  generally 
recognized  there  that  traditional  piety  and  general  cul- 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  137 

ture  are  not  merely  compatible  with,  but  are  essential  to, 
Jewish  welfare. 

If  the  Enlightenment,  in  its  cultural  achievements,  was 
but  a  pale  reflection  of  the  brilliant  Spanish  period,  the 
Hebrew  language  has  assumed  a  flexibility  unexampled 
since  Biblical  times.  There  is  no  phase  of  modern  lit- 
erature that  has  not  found  full  expression  in  the  ancient 
Hebrew  tongue,  which  by  degrees  has  again  developed 
into  a  language  for  common  use.  There  is  a  considerable 
output  of  Hebrew  books  of  Jewish  and  general  interest, 
as  well  as  of  original  works  of  belles-lettres  and  science, 
and  a  Hebrew  press,  with  daily  newspapers  and  other 
periodicals  of  equal  value  to  their  contemporaries,  pro- 
vide full  accounts  and  discussions  of  political  and  social 
questions.  In  Palestine,  Hebrew  is  once  more  the  ver- 
nacular among  an  ever-growing  number  of  Jews,  and 
instruction  in  elementary  and  high  schools  there  is,  in 
all  subjects,  being  carried  on  in  that  language.  This 
latest  form  of  Hebrew  literature  has  already  produced 
several  names  of  the  first  rank,  while  there  are  a  host 
of  talented  men  of  letters  who  would  have  done  honour 
to  any  other  language.  Abraham  Mapu  (1808-1867) 
as  a  novelist,  Leon  Gordon  (i  831-1892)  as  a  poet,  and 
Perez  Smolenskin  (1842-1885)  as  a  litterateur,  should 
stand  high  in  the  republic  of  letters,  into  which  Hebrew, 
in  spite  of  its  hoary  antiquity,  has  entered  once  more 
with  all  the  elements  and  potentialities  of  a  modern 
language. 

§  5.  Yiddish. — As  an  annexe  of  Hebrew  literature 
must  be  regarded  Yiddish  (Jiidisch,  Jewish),  the  lingua 
franca  of  the  Jews.  It  is  spoken  by  the  Jews  of  the 
whole  of  Eastern  Europe  and  their  numerous  emigrants 
in  Western  Europe  and  the  New  World.  It  was  orig- 
inally the  Teutonic  vernacular  of  the  medieval  German 
Jews,  who  used  the  language  of  their  native  country,  and, 
strange  as  it  may  seem,  even  produced  in  the  thirteenth 
century  Siisskind   von  Trimberg,   a  minnesinger  of   the 


138  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

German  tongue.  The  great  Jewish  migrations  from 
Germany  to  Poland  during  the  crusades  and  the  Black 
Death  brought  the  German  language  also  into  Eastern 
parts,  but  there  the  German  was  mixed  up  with  Slavic 
expressions  and  grammatical  turns,  w^hile  the  religious 
influence  gave  Hebrew  an  important  part  in  shaping  the 
language.  This  Jewish  German  was,  however,  so  over- 
shadow-ed  by  Hebrew  that  it  long  remained  a  stunted 
patois,  and  even  those  to  whom  Yiddish  was  the  mother- 
tongue  did  not  accord  it  the  respect  due  to  one's  native 
language.  With  the  growth  of  the  Jewish  publicistic 
activities  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Yiddish  was  at  last  recognized  as  the  only  medium  for 
reaching  the  masses,  and  a  literature  of  some  consider- 
able dimensions  has  grown  up,  both  In  permanent  and 
ephemeral  form.  A  number  of  novelists  and  poets  of 
high  merit  have  arisen,  and  Yiddish  plays,  introduced 
by  A.  Goldfaden  and  developed  by  others,  have  also  met 
with  some  success,  especially  in  America.  Hence  Yiddish, 
with  its  enterprising  press  and  extensive  literature,  does 
not  by  any  means  deserve  the  opprobrium  which  has  been 
meted  out  to  it  by  Jew-s  as  well  as  by  the  outside  world. 
Certainly,  in  some  respects,  as  in  invective  and  satire, 
Yiddish  possesses  an  Oriental  exuberance  not  matched 
by  any  other  European  tongue  (for  such  must  Yiddish 
be  acknowledged  to  be).  But  Yiddish  has  no  future, 
and,  beyond  very  remarkable  and  valuable  studies  of  the 
life  of  the  Jewish  masses,  with  which  only  Yiddish  writ- 
ers can  have  an  intimate  acquaintance,  it  has  produced 
no  work  of  permanent  distinction.  Yiddish  has  to  give 
way  to  the  dominant  language  of  the  country,  while  the 
wealth,  prestige,  and  dignity  of  Hebrew  secure  for  this 
ancient  and  historic  tongue  the  indisputable  precedence 
in  the  affection,  and  even  veneration,  of  the  Jewish 
people. 

§  6.     The  Science  of  Judaism. — While  the   He- 
brew Enlightenment  took  its  course  in  Eastern  Europe, 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  139 

the  Jews  of  Germany,  attracted  by  the  throbbing  intel- 
lectual life  around  them,  drank  in  eagerly  all  that  came 
within  their  reach.  In  an  incredibly  short  time,  they 
rose  to  a  leading  position  in  the  literary  world  of  Berlin. 
The  daughters  of  Moses  Mendelssohn,  Rachel  Levin, 
Henriette  Herz,  and  other  Jewesses,  were  now  the  bril- 
liant hostesses  in  famous  salons  where  the  intellectual 
lights  of  Germany  were  wont  to  assemble.  This  rapid 
rise  was  not  without  its  dangers.  Bewildered  and  in- 
toxicated, many  of  them  lost  their  religious  and  moral 
balance.  Even  the  daughters  of  Moses  Mendelssohn 
went  over  to  Christianity;  his  son  Abraham,  though  still 
remaining  a  Jew  himself,  had  his  son  Felix,  the  future 
composer,  baptized,  admittedly  not  because  of  a  belief 
in  the  truths  of  Christianity,  but  to  smooth  the  way  of 
his  future  career.  The  abnormal  position  of  the  Ger- 
man Jews,  imbued  as  they  were  with  the  highest  culture 
of  the  age,  and  yet  condemned  as  political  outcasts,  shut 
out  from  all  the  benefits  and  favours  of  a  bureaucratic 
state,  led  to  conversions  en  masse  to  the  dominant  re- 
ligion of  the  land.  In  a  short  space  of  time,  about  a 
third  of  the  Berlin  Jews,  and  that  of  the  most  wealthy 
and  refined,  entered  the  Christian  fold.  David  Fried- 
lander,  the  successor  of  Mendelssohn  among  the  Jews 
of  Berlin,  applied  on  behalf  of  a  number  of  fellow  Jews 
for  admission  into  the  Church  on  condition  of  not  being 
obliged  to  subscribe  to  the  divinity  of  Jesus  or  other  dog- 
mas of  Christianity. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  any  one  solemnly  for- 
swearing his  or  her  ancestral  religion  and  pubh'cly  ac- 
knowledging an  alien  faith  in  which  one  does  not  believe, 
and  whether  worldly  advancement  is  a  sufficient  condona- 
tion of  what  our  better  nature  is  sure  to  condemn,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  very  little  had  been  done  by  the 
second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  to  strengthen 
the  Jewish  consciousness  and  to  bring  medieval  Judaism 
into  accord  with  modern  thought.     It  began  to  be  felt, 


140  HISTORY    OF   THE   JEWS 

however,  that  the  great  past  of  the  Jewish  people  ought 
to  be  resuscitated  from  the  dust  of  the  ages,  and  pre- 
sented to  the  inner  circle  as  well  as  the  world  at  large 
as  a  picture  worthy  of  all  respect.  A  number  of  young 
men  of  eminent  qualifications  had  set  about  to  establish  a 
society,  "Kultur  Verein,"  for  Jewish  studies,  but,  alas! 
some  of  the  most  promising,  among  them  the  poet  Hein- 
rich  Heine  and  the  jurist  Eduard  Gans,  left  Judaism  to 
be  able  to  enter  the  service  of  the  state  or  for  some  equally 
bad  reason.  It  was  an  unhappy  beginning,  but  it  was 
left  to  one  of  the  small  band  of  the  faithful  to  carry 
through  an  herculean  task  with  every  success.  Leopold 
Zunz  (1794- 1 886)  became  the  founder  of,  what  has 
been  termed  in  Germany,  the  Science  of  Judaism,  i.  e. 
the  scientific  investigation  and  presentation  of  Jewish 
history  and  literature.  With  a  marvellous  industry  and 
a  remarkable  instinct,  Zunz  collected  and  collated  the 
ancient  and  scattered  fragments  of  the  extant  Jewish 
documents,  and  brought  order  and  beauty  out  of  an  ap- 
parently hopeless  chaos.  His  masterly  writings  served 
to  call  forth  the  emulation  of  numerous  other  Jewish 
scholars.  Among  his  contemporaries  were  the  Galicians 
Nachman  Krochmal  and  S.  J.  Rapoport,  who  combined 
the  prodigious  Talmudical  erudition  of  the  East  with 
the  critical  sense  of  the  West.  Their  labours  brought 
forth  an  abundant  harvest,  especially  in  Germany.  J. 
M.  Jost  (1793- 1 860),  the  first  modern  historian  of  the 
Jews;  Abraham  Geiger  (1810-1874),  a  rabbi  of  en- 
cyclopedic knowledge,  and  Heinrich  Gratz  (1817-1891), 
the  author  of  a  monumental  History  of  the  Jews  (also 
translated  into  English),  stand  out  as  the  brightest  stars 
in  the  galaxy  of  Jewish  scholars  and  thinkers  whose  re- 
searches and  penetrating  minds  have  illumined  the  re- 
cesses of  the  Jewish  past.  Exceptional  mention  is  due  to 
M.  Steinschneider  (i 816- 1908),  who,  unlike  other  Jew- 
ish investigators,  left  the  theological  and  historical  high- 
ways and  explored  the  rich  contributions  which  the  medi- 


1 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  141 

eval  Moorish  and  Spanish  Jews  made  to  the  general  ad- 
vance of  civilization. 

From  Teutonic  lands  the  new  Science  of  Judaism  spread 
to  other  parts  of  Europe,  and  also  to  America.  Samuel 
David  Luzzatto  in  Italy  (1800-1865)  and  Salomon  Munk 
in  France  (1803-1867)  were  the  chief  representatives  in 
those  countries.  As  fruitful  foster-grounds  of  modern 
Jewish  learning  must  be  accounted  the  various  Rabbinical 
Seminaries,  the  first  of  which  was  established  in  Breslau 
in  1854.  Similar  theological  colleges  have  been  estab- 
lished in  Paris  (a  development  of  the  Central  Rabbinical 
School  founded  at  Metz  in  1830),  London,  Berlin,  Vi- 
enna, Budapest,  Rome  (now  in  Florence),  Cincinnati, 
New  York.  In  Western  parts  they  have  supplanted  the 
Talmudical  High  Schools  (Yeshiboth),  which  still  con- 
tinue their  activities  in  Eastern  Europe  and  the  Orient. 

§  7.  The  Reform  of  Judaism. — The  revival  of 
Jewish  learning,  no  less  than  the  imperative  call  of  the 
times,  brought  a  change  in  the  current  conceptions  of 
Judaism.  While  medievalism  had  practically  confined 
the  Jews  to  the  Talmud  and  the  ritual  codes  that  had 
been  elaborated  by  IVIoses  Maimonides  and  Joseph  Caro, 
the  all-absorbing  efifort  to  maintain  Judaism  against  the 
numerous  subversive  influences  that  threatened  its  very 
existence,  led  to  the  neglect  of  the  fascinating  and  inspir- 
ing Biblical  epoch,  of  all  the  philosophical  developments 
of  Judaism,  its  wealth  of  ideas,  the  profundity  of  its  so- 
cial ethics  and  the  grandeur  of  the  world-mission  of 
Israel.  A  critical  examination  laid  bare  the  strength  as 
well  as  the  weaknesses  of  Judaism.  It  showed  that 
Judaism  was  not  a  religion  bounded  by  the  circumscribed 
outlook  of  medieval  Rabbis,  but  that  the  Jews  were 
still  in  possession  of  those  wells  w^hich  had  given  the 
ethico-monotheistic  idea  and  the  prohpetical  order  to 
the  world.  It  was  only  necessary  to  clear  away  the  ac- 
cumulations of  scholasticism  and  narrow-minded  pietism 
in  order  to  make  the  living  waters  accessible  to  all. 


142  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

The  Reform  of  Judaism,  which  took  its  rise  in  Ger- 
many, the  intellectual  centre  of  Jewry,  was  not  a  moral 
revolt,  like  the  Protestant  Reformation  of  Christianity 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  but  was  primarily  liturgical  and 
ceremonial  in  character.  The  prayers,  which  had  grown 
to  inordinate  length,  were  curtailed  and  certain  customs 
abolished,  not  through  any  wanton  desire  for  destruc- 
tion, but  because  historical  investigation  had  shown  what 
was  truly  ancient  and  essential  and  what  was  a  later 
and  unnecessary  accretion.  The  Divine  Services  were 
beautified,  because  the  growth  of  the  aesthetic  taste  de- 
manded that  a  greater  decorum  and  dignity^  should  be 
introduced  into  the  synagogues,  which  had  hitherto  been 
utilized  as  the  ordinary  house  of  assembly  in  the  Jewish 
community.  Religious  instruction  from  the  pulpit,  which 
had  been  long  neglected,  became  again  an  integral  fea- 
ture of  the  Divine  Service,  and  the  vernacular  was  more 
and  more  introduced  among  the  prayers.  Throughout 
there  was  a  general  tendency  to  do  away  with  the  Ori- 
ental and  separatist  aspects  of  Judaism,  and  to  bring  into 
bold  relief  the  universalistic  and  ethical  mission  of  the 
Jewish  people. 

The  first  effort  to  introduce  liturgical  and  ceremonial 
reforms  in  the  synagogue  was  made  by  Israel  Jacobsohn, 
who,  in  i8iO,  established  at  Seesen,  near  the  Harz 
Mountains,  a  synagogue  on  those  lines.  In  1818  an- 
other such  synagogue  was  erected  in  Hamburg,  and  many 
of  the  outward  improvements  adopted  there  were  intro- 
duced later  on  in  the  Jewish  houses  of  prayer  through- 
out Western  Europe,  but  those  places  where  doctrinal 
changes  were  acted  upon  became  known  as  Reform  Syn- 
agogues, or  Temples,  which  spread  all  over  Germany 
and  found  their  fullest  development  in  the  United  States 
of  America.  The  first  Reform  Synagogue  in  London 
was  established  in  1841,  and  was  followed  by  similar 
synagogues   in   Manchester   and    Bradford. 

Among  those  Rabbis  who  worked  in  the  cause  of  Re- 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  143 

form  Judaism  in  Germany  were  Samuel  Holdheim 
(1806-1860),  a  thorough-going  Radical,  whose  syna- 
gogue in  Berlin  boldly  transferred  the  Sabbath  from 
Saturday  to  Sunday ;  Abraham  Geiger,  whose  great  learn- 
ing gave  historical  support  to  progressive  ideas;  Samuel 
Hirsch  (1815-1889),  who  elaborated  a  philosophical 
basis  for  the  new  movement;  Ludwig  Philippson  (1811- 
1889),  whose  Allgemeine  Zeitung  des  Judenthums,  long 
the  most  important  German-Jewish  periodical,  spread 
the  cause  of  reform  far  and  wide.  In  the  United  States, 
the  remarkable  organizing  abilities  of  Isaac  M.  Wise 
(1819-1900)  rendered  Reform  the  dominant  feature  of 
American  Judaism.  Rabbinical  Conferences  in  Germany 
in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  in  America 
during  the  last  decades,  brought  about  definite  pronounce- 
ments on  the  Reform  attitude  on  vital  problems  of  Ju- 
daism and  their  relations  to  modern  thought  and  con- 
ditions. 

The  cause  of  Conservatism,  or  Orthodoxy,  was  up- 
held in  the  first  place  by  Rabbis  of  the  old  type,  who  saw 
in  Reform  the  dissolution  of  Judaism,  and  by  scholars 
and  thinkers  who,  recognizing  the  need  for  some  definite 
action  to  counteract  the  growing  indifference  and  apos- 
tasy, sought  to  preserve  the  ancient  structure  of  Judaism 
while  affecting  such  alterations  as  were  undoubtedly  de- 
manded by  the  changed  times.  It  was  the  latter  attitude 
which  stemmed  the  tide  of  Reform  in  Germany  and  else- 
where. Zecharias  Frjinkel  (1801-1875),  the  principal 
of  the  Breslau  Theological  Seminary,  brought  about  a 
tendency,  the  so-called  Breslau  school,  which,  proclaim- 
ing the  well-established  freedom  of  Jewish  thought,  em- 
phasized the  continuity — or  the  positive-historic  aspect — 
of  Judaism.  Samson  Raphael  Hirsch  (1807-1888),  of 
Frankfort-on-Main,  exercised  a  marked  conservative  ef- 
fect on  those  who  came  under  his  immediate  influence, 
while  Israel  Hildesheimer  (1820-1899),  by  his  Rabbini- 
cal Seminary  in  Berlin,  created  a.  living  centre  of  tradi- 


144  HISTORY    OF    THE    JEWS 

tional  Judaism.  The  somewhat  disappointing  results  of 
the  high  hopes  of  Reform  in  Germany,  and  the  common 
and  pressing  problems  which  affected  the  Jews  of  all 
parties,  have  acted  as  checks  to  the  progress  of  Reform, 
while  the  reckless  radicalism  of  some  Rabhis  on  the  one 
hand  and  the  rally  of  the  orthodox  on  the  other,  have 
brought  about  a  general  reaction  towards  moderate  con- 
servatism. 

§  8.  The  Struggle  for  Emancipation. — While  in- 
ternal problems,  religious  and  social,  stirred  Western 
Judaism  out  of  its  long  lethargy,  the  growing  intellectual 
advancement  of  the  Jews  called  for  the  abrogation  of 
those  medieval  enactments  with  which  bigotry  and  prej- 
udice still  fettered  all  the  efforts  of  the  Jews.  Even  in 
Holland,  England,  and  in  other  parts  of  Europe,  where 
the  Jews  had  found  a  refuge,  they  were  tolerated  as 
aliens  rather  than  recognized  as  full-fledged  citizens. 
To  attain  this  latter  object  has  been  the  determined  ef- 
fort of  the  Jews  during  the  last  century.  The  first  mod- 
ern European  ruler  to  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Jews 
might  be  turned  into  useful  members  of  the  state  by  ac- 
cording them  the  means  of  self-development  was  Joseph 
II  of  Austria,  who,  in  1782,  issued  a  number  of  liberal 
laws  affecting  the  Jews,  but  they  proved  of  little  prac- 
tical effect  under  the  inimical  governments  of  his  suc- 
cessors, and  it  vi^as  only  in  1848,  the  year  of  fateful  com- 
motions on  the  European  Continent,  that  the  Austrian 
Jews  achieved  some  measure  of  freedom.  In  1866  the 
Jews  of  Austria  were  completely  emancipated  from  all 
legislation  directed  against  them.  The  French  Revolu- 
tion, which  proclaimed  the  equality  of  all  men,  could 
not  well  have  excluded  the  Jews  from  this  fundamental 
principle.  Napoleon  I,  who  had  his  own  opinions,  was 
at  first  inclined  to  question  the  general  idea  of  equality 
in  its  application  to  the  Jews,  but,  to  settle  his  doubts, 
he  convened  in  1806  an  assembly  of  representative  Jews, 
grandiosely  called  a  Sanhedrin,  which  had  to  answer  a 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  145 

series  of  questions  relating  to  the  attitude  of  Jews  to- 
wards the  state,  and  their  non-Jewish  fellow-citizens. 
The  only  concrete  result  of  these  deliberations  was  the 
establishment  of  a  consistory  of  the  Jews  of  France.  The 
Revolution  of  1830  crowned  the  citizenship  of  the  Jews 
by  including  Judaism  among  the  religions  officially  rec- 
ognized and  subventioned  by  the  state.  France,  which 
thus  led  in  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews  in  Europe, 
brought  the  same  boon  to  the  Jews  of  all  the  states  that 
came  under  its  rule,  or  even  influence,  in  the  great  con- 
quests of  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire.  But  when 
the  French  receded  from  their  positions  in  Western  Ger- 
many, many  of  the  old  laws  were  again  put  into  force 
against  the  Jews,  and  although  the  Congress  of  Vienna 
confirmed  the  rights  granted  to  the  German  Jews  during 
the  French  occupation,  this  was  made  invalid  by  the 
trickery  and  chicanery  with  which  it  was  interpreted  by 
the  authorities.  The  leading  Jewish  champion  in  the 
struggle  for  the  emancipation  of  the  German  Jews  was 
Gabriel  Riesser  (1806-1860),  who  claimed  the  libera- 
tion of  the  German  Jew  as  a  German  patriot  to  whom 
the  name  and  fame  of  his  fatherland  was  as  dear  as  the 
welfare  of  his  co-religionists.  The  upheaval  of  1848 
proved  a  turning-point  in  the  political  fortunes  of  the 
German  Jews,  whose  emancipation  was  completed  in 
the  creation  of  the  German  empire  in  1871.  In  Hungary, 
the  Jews  were  emancipated  with  the  grant  of  the  consti- 
tution in  1867,  and  in  Italy  the  last  vestiges  of  Jewish 
disabilities  were  swept  away  with  the  entry  of  the  Italian 
army  into  Rome  in  1870. 

§  9.  Emancipation  in  England. — The  history  of 
the  Jews  in  England  since  the  resettlement  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  century  is  one  of  organic  development 
from  a  trading  body  of  aliens  domiciled  in  England  to 
one  of  the  many  integral  elements  of  which  the  British 
empire  is  composed.  The  Jews  in  England  had  not  to 
battle  against  a  medieval  anti-Jewish  legislation,  as  was 


146  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

the  case  on  the  Continent,  but  the  Christian  character  of 
the  English  state  precluded  the  incorporation  of  the  Jews 
into  the  body  politic.    The  disabilities  which  were  thereby 
created   rendered  necessary  a  lengthy  struggle  to  bring 
about   the   enfranchisement   of   the   British   Jews.     The 
fact  that  already  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury Jews  took  a  prominent  part  in  the  financial  affairs 
of  the  nation,  such  as  the  assistance  rendered  by  Antonio 
Lopez  Suasso  (Baron  Avernas  de  Gras)  to  William  III 
in  his  descent  on  England,  by  Sir  Solomon  de  Medina 
(the  first  Jew  to  be  knighted  in  England)   to  the  Duke 
of  Marlborough,  or  the  loyal  support  of  the  Jews  during 
the  Jacobite  insurrection,  predisposed  the  king  and  the 
government  in  their  favour.    In  1723  the  words,  "On  the 
true  faith  of  a  Christian,"  were  removed   from  Jewish 
oaths,  though  the  phrase  was  to  prove  a  very  serious  ob- 
struction to  Jewish  political  progress.     In   1753  a  Jew- 
ish Naturalization  Bill  was  passed  both  in  the  House  of 
Commons  and  the  House  of  Lords,  but  this  created  such 
a  commotion  that  it  was  repealed  in  the  following  j^ear. 
With  this  the  civic  emancipation  of  the  Jews  was  delayed 
indefinitely.     Even  more  than  on  the  Continent,  the  in- 
tellectual and  social  had  preceded  the  political  emancipa- 
tion of  the  Jews,  and  increased  the  discontent  and  im- 
patience of  those  who  yearned  to  shine  in  the  larger  life 
of  the  nation.     Hence  a  great  number  of  the  wealthy 
and  cultivated   Spanish  and   Portuguese  Jews — descend- 
ants of  those  who  for  their  religion's  sake  had  braved 
the  dangers  of  the  Inquisition — entered  into  the  coveted 
equalit}^  through  the  portals  of  the  Church.     The  fam- 
ilies   of    D'Israeli,    Basevi,    Bernal,    Ricardo,    Ximenes, 
Lopes,  etc.,  who  have  since  risen  high  in  British  public  and 
social  life,  gradually  severed  their  connection  with  Juda- 
ism.    But  the  Jewish  community  nevertheless  increased 
in  numbers  and  influence,  and  the  demand  for  civic  rights 
thus  became  only  more  urgent.     In  1833  a  Bill  for  the 
yernov^l  of  Jewish  disabilities  was  passed  by  the  House  of 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  147 

Commons,  but  it  was  rejected  by  the  House  of  Lords, 
and  this  procedure  was  repeated  no  less  than  ten  times. 
Following  the  line  of  least  resistance,  relief  was  obtained 
meanwhile  by  the  repeal  of  disabilities  connected  with 
municipal  life,  and  David  Salomons  (afterwards  created 
a  baronet)  was  in  1835  elected  sheriff  of  London.  (In 
1839  he  was  high  sheriff  of  Kent,  and  in  1856  the  first 
Jewish  lord  mayor  of  London.)  Admission  to  Parlia- 
ment was,  however,  still  barred  by  the  Christian  oath  of 
allegiance.  To  force  events,  the  City  of  London  elected 
in  1847  Baron  Lionel  de  Rothschild  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  he  could  not  take  his  seat,  although  re-elected 
in  1850,  In  1 85 1  David  Salomons,  on  being  elected  for 
Greenwich,  took  the  bolder  course  of  voting  and  speaking 
in  the  House,  even  against  the  Speaker's  ruling.  He 
was  nevertheless  obliged  to  withdraw,  and  to  pay  a  fine 
of  £500  for  each  of  the  three  times  he  had  sat  in  the 
House.  It  was  only  in  1858  that,  as  a  compromise  be- 
tween the  Upper  and  the  Lower  Houses,  it  was  decided 
that  the  oath  could,  by  a  special  resolution,  be  modified, 
and  it  was  under  such  a  resolution  that  Baron  Lionel  de 
Rothschild,  as  the  first  professing  Jew,  entered  Parlia- 
ment in  that  year.  In  i860  the  Parliament  oath  for 
both  Houses  was  permanently  amended,  and  in  1885  Sir 
Nathan  Mayer  de  Rothschild  took,  under  the  title  of 
Lord  Rothschild,  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  as  the 
first  Jewish  peer.  All  offices  of  state  are  now  open  to 
Jews  all  over  the  British  empire,  where  a  number  of 
them  have  risen  to  the  ranks  of  cabinet  minister,  colonial 
prime  minister  and  governor. 

§  10.  Russia. — All  the  important  states  of  Western 
civilization  have  now,  at  least  in  principle,  recognized  the 
equality  of  the  Jews  with  their  fellow  citizens,  but  the 
JcAvs  in  Russia,  w'ho  number  about  six  millions  and  com- 
prise a  half  of  the  Jewish  people,  are  still  subject  to  all 
the  tyranny  and  whims  of  medieval  legislation  and  ad- 
ministration. 


148  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

In  large  tracts  of  modern  Russia,  Jews  were  already 
settled  long  before  the  arrival  of  their  present  rulers,  and 
the  conversion  of  the  Chazars  to  Judaism  brought  a 
large  part  of  Southern  Russia  under  Jewish  influence. 
But  owing  to  the  religious  exclusiveness  of  the  Musco- 
vite grand  dukes  as  well  as  to  the  spread  of  a  remarkable 
Judaizing  heresy,  which  was  formed  in  Novgorod  to- 
wards the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  affected  the 
highest  circles  in  the  land,  the  Jews  were  barely  suffered 
on  Russian  territory.  Ivan  the  Terrible  refused  to  con- 
sent to  the  proposal  of  king  Sigismund  Augustus  of 
Poland  to  admit  Jews  into  Russia,  and  this  attitude  was 
continued  by  Ivan's  successors,  who  in  effect  adopted  the 
famous  words  of  the  empress  Elizabeth  (1742),  "I  will 
not  derive  any  profit  from  the  enemies  of  Christ." 
Catherine  II,  who  affected  the  airs  of  an  enlightened 
sovereign,  confirmed  the  exclusion  of  Jews  from  Russian 
soil,  but  with  the  first  division  of  Poland  in  1773,  when 
a  large  number  of  Jews  came  under  Russian  rule,  she 
had  to  content  herself  by  issuing  certain  restrictive  laws 
against  them.  This  policy  of  discrimination  against  the 
Jews  became  the  standing  policy  of  the  Russian  tsars, 
and  it  was  only  now  and  again  interrupted  by  some 
countervailing  decrees  designed  to  alleviate  the  too  mani- 
fest misery  of  the  Jewish  lot  or  to  incorporate  them  into 
the  Russian  national  life.  Attempts  made  in  this  latter 
direction,  which  were  usually  carried  out  with  a  brutal 
disregard  of  Jewish  susceptibilities  and  with  the  ulterior 
motive  of  converting  the  Jews  to  the  Orthodox  Church, 
aroused  their  justified  suspicions,  and  defeated  even  the 
well-intentioned  objects  of  the  central  government. 

That  the  Russian  Jews  were  more  amenable  to  gen- 
uinely tolerant  measures  was  proved  in  the  hopeful  reign 
of  tsar  Alexander  II.  The  Russian  defeat  in  the 
Crimean  War,  which  led  to  general  reforms,  also  affected 
favourably  the  welfare  of  the  Jews.  A  relaxation  of 
the  restrictions  imposed  on  their  movements  and  social 


THE  ERA  OF  ASSIMILATION  149 

developments  was  all  that  was  necessary  to  bring  about 
a  great  forward  stride  in  their  Russification.  In  litera- 
ture and  art,  in  industry  and  commerce,  Russian  Jews 
rose  very  rapidly  to  honourable  positions.  Anton  Rubin- 
stein, the  most  famous  musician,  and  Marc  Antokolski, 
the  greatest  sculptor,  produced  by  Russia,  stood  for  a 
host  of  Russian  Jews  who  added  to  the  renown  of  their 
fatherland,  while  the  intelligence  and  enterprise  of  Jew- 
ish merchants  and  manufacturers  contributed  to  its 
wealth. 

Even  the  reaction  that  set  in  during  the  latter  part  of 
the  reign  of  Alexander  II  did  not  check  the  progress  and 
all-round  expansion  of  Russian  Jewry.  But  everything 
came  to  a  sudden  standstill  with  the  shock  occasioned  by 
the  assassination  of  the  tsar-liberator  and  the  accession  of 
Alexander  III.  The  growing  revolutionary  sentiment 
was  arrested  by  a  merciless  proscription  of  every  liberal 
idea,  and,  to  save  the  Asiatic  despotism  and  Byzantine 
bureaucracy  peculiar  to  Russia,  the  Jews  were  thrown  to 
the  reactionary  wolves.  The  civilized  world  was  horri- 
fied by  the  wide-spread  anti-Jewish  riots  which  occurred 
all  over  South-Western  Russia,  and  threatened  to  engulf 
the  Russian  Jews.  Then  sweeping  measures  were  taken 
to  cripple  the  economic  and  intellectual  development  of 
the  Jewish  population.  On  May  3,  1882,  Count  Igna- 
tiev  issued  certain  "temporary"  regulations,  known  as 
"May  Laws,"  which,  in  spite  of  the  recommendations  of 
an  imperial  commission  favourable  to  the  Jews,  have  re- 
mained in  force  to  the  present  day.  The  Jews  were 
cooped  up  in  Poland  and  in  towns  of  certain  specified 
provinces  in  North-Western  Russia,  designated  as  the 
Pale  of  Settlement;  they  were  shut  out  from  rural  dis- 
tricts and  hedged  round  with  innumerable  restrictions. 
The  Jews  outside  this  Pale  of  Settlement  were  merci- 
lessly driven  out  bag  and  baggage  at  the  shortest  notice, 
and  the  misery  that  was  thus  flaunted  in  the  face  of 
Europe  and  America  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 


ISO  HISTORY    OF    THE   JEWS 

defies  description.  With  some  notable  protests,  particu- 
larly in  London  in  1882  and  1891,  civilization  had  come 
to  the  end  of  its  resources,  and  the  Russian  government, 
of  which  C.  Pobiedonostzev,  the  procurator  of  the  Holy 
Synod,  was  the  leading  spirit,  had  its  own  way.  This 
policy  (summed  up  in  Pobiedonostzev's  ideal  solution 
that  a  third  of  the  Russian  Jews  would  emigrate,  a  third 
become  converted,  and  a  third  die  of  starvation)  has 
been  continued  under  Nicholas  II,  whose  reign  was 
marked  in  1905  by  the  most  violent  anti-Jewish  atrocities 
that  have  taken  place  since  the  Cossack  uprising  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  In  spite  of  the  mocking  hopes  of  a 
constitution  and  a  Duma,  the  Russian  Jews  are  still  in 
the  same  state  of  bondage,  and  there  is  none  to  deliver 
them. 

§  II.  The  United  States  of  America. — In  strik- 
ing contrast  to  Russia  stand  the  United  States  of  Amer- 
ica, where  the  stream  of  Jewish  emigration  from  Eastern 
Europe  has  found  an  easy  and  beneficent  outlet.  If, 
according  to  the  oft-quoted  saying  of  the  Jewish  novelist, 
Karl  Emil  Franzos,  every  country  has  the  Jews  it  de- 
serves, we  may  extend  the  application  by  the  remark  that 
every  people  has  the  government  worthy  of  it.  From 
the  time  that  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews,  hunted 
out  of  priest-ridden  countries,  found  a  refuge  in  North 
America,  it  has  received  all  manner  of  Jews,  who  have 
all  proved  citizens  of  value  and  worth  to  their  new 
countr}'.  The  history  of  the  Jews  in  America  merges 
into  American  history.  Although  barely  4,000  all  told 
at  the  time  of  the  War  of  Independence,  the  American 
Jews  took  an  appreciable  part  in  the  revolutionary  strug- 
gle, Colonel  Solomon  Bush  being  among  those  who  par- 
ticularly distinguished  themselves.  The  most  notable  of 
the  patriots  was  Haym  Salomon  (i  740-1 785),  a  Polish 
Jew,  who  unselfishly  served  in  a  variety  of  important 
financial  capacities  and  spent  his  own  large  fortune  for 
the  benefit  of  his  adopted  country.     Although  the  Jews 


THE  AGE    OF    ASSIMILATION  151 

in  some  of  the  States,  like  their  co-religionists  in  England, 
had  to  contend  against  certain  Christian  formulas,  which 
shut  them  out  from  public  offices,  the  Jews  in  America 
have  received  uniform  and  friendly  recognition  of  their 
value  as  citizens  and  patriots.  Of  the  many  American 
Jews  who  rose  to  high  office  in  the  service  of  their  coun- 
try, mention  can  only  be  made  of  Judah  P.  Benjamin 
(1811-1884),  the  most  able  Minister  of  the  American 
Confederation,  who,  after  the  Civil  War,  left  for  Eng- 
land, where  he  became  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Bar. 

The  large  influx  of  Jews  from  Eastern  Europe  into 
the  United  States  is  rapidly  transferring  the  Jewish  cen- 
tre of  gravity  to  the  great  and  free  communities  in 
America.  In  New  York,  close  on  a  million  Jews  form 
the  largest  Jewish  aggregation  since  the  days  when  Jeru- 
salem was  the  capital  of  the  land  of  Israel,  and  Jewish 
charitj'  and  self-help,  both  exemplary  in  manner  and 
scope,  have  made  an  ever-increasing  Jewish  popula- 
tion sharers  in  the  untold  potentialities  of  the  United 
States. 

The  virgin  soil  of  America  has  also  brought  forth  re- 
ligious developments  of  Judaism  adapted  to  the  new  con- 
ditions, but  on  this  history  must  reserve  its  verdict. 
There  can,  however,  be  no  doubt  of  the  high  purpose  and 
moral  earnestness  of  those  spiritual  leaders  of  American 
Judaism  who  stand  for  the  Jewish  Messianic  ideals  of 
social  justice,  of  enlightenment  and  truth. 

§  12.  Self-Emancipation. — While  in  the  various 
lands  of  civilization  the  Jews  were  left  to  work  out  their 
own  salvation,  the  collective  Jewish  conscience  still  re- 
ceives appeals  for  aid  from  outlying  portions  of  the  Dis- 
persion. Apart  from  the  vast  measures  of  relief  ex- 
tended to  the  Jewish  refugees  from  Eastern  Europe,  it 
has  been  particularly  the  Jews  of  the  Orient  that  have 
called  for  the  intervention  of  their  more  favourably  situ- 
ated co-religionists.  While  the  Jews  under  Turkish  rule 
have  always  enjoyed  a  fair  measure  of  toleration,  it  was 


152  HISTORY    OF    THE    JEWS 

a  long  time  before  the  light  made  its  appearance  in  the 
East,  By  virtue  of  a  decree  of  Adolphe  Cremieux,  as  a 
member  of  the  Government  of  National  Defence,  the 
Jews  in  Algeria  were  incorporated  among  the  citizens  of 
France  (1870),  and  the  Jews  of  Tunis  are  now  at  least 
protected  by  the  French  occupation.  But  in  Morocco, 
Persia  and  Rumania  (alone  among  the  Balkan  States 
formerly  belonging  to  Turkey)  the  Jewish  lot  is  still  a 
very  sad  one.  The  first  concerted  Jewish  public  action 
was  aroused  in  1840  by  an  accusation  against  a  number 
of  Jews  in  Damascus  that  they  had  killed  a  Franciscan 
monk  in  order  to  use  his  blood  for  religious  purposes. 
This  Damascus  Affair,  which  excited  great  interest  and 
indignation  at  the  time,  raised  up  two  men  who  headed 
the  struggle  for  the  liberation  of  the  whole  Jewish  race. 
Sir  Moses  Montefiore  (i  784-1885)  and  Adolphe  Cre- 
mieux (1796-1880),  both  men  of  high  distinction  in 
England  and  France,  accompanied  by  Salomon  Munk 
and  Louis  Loewe,  Orientalists  of  note,  set  out  for  the 
East  on  a  mission  against  the  forces  of  religious  bigotry. 
They  were  supported  by  enlightened  public  opinion, 
and  were  not  only  instrumental  in  freeing  the  accused, 
but  also  in  obtaining  a  firman  from  the  sultan  of  Turkey 
condemning  the  charge  of  ritual  murder  as  a  baseless 
fabrication.  Still  more  important  was  the  example  and 
stimulus  this  gave  to  future  public  action  on  similar  oc- 
casions. Such  an  instance  occurred  in  1858,  when  a 
six-year-old  Jewish  child,  Edgar  Mortara,  of  Bologna, 
was  forcibly  taken  from  his  parents  by  papal  guards  on 
the  ground  of  his  having  been  surreptitiously  baptized  by 
a  servant  four  years  previous.  The  world  was  up  in 
arms.  The  emperors  Francis  Joseph  and  Napoleon  III 
intervened  personally  with  Pope  Pius  IX,  and  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore  went  on  a  mission  to  Rome,  but  it  was  all  of 
no  avail,  and  Mortara  was  afterwards  brought  up  as  a 
Catholic  priest.  The  indignation  aroused  in  this  matter 
contributed  much  to  the  odium  which  surrounded  the  last 


THE  AGE    OF    ASSIMILATION  153 

days  of  the  Papal  State,  and  gave  the  impetus  for  the 
establishment,  in  i860,  of  the  Alliance  Israelite  Univer- 
selle,  until  recently  the  most  important  international 
Jewish  body.  The  Alliance  was  to  act  as  the  accredited 
representative  of  the  Jewish  people  wherever  it  suffered 
for  conscience'  sake.  1  his  function  has  been  exercised 
with  marked  effect  in  Oriental  countries,  where  the  pres- 
tige of  the  Alliance  has  been  supported  by  the  representa- 
tives of  France  and  other  civilized  Powers.  At  the  Berlin 
Congress  of  1878,  the  Alliance  was  also  instrumental  in 
obtaining  the  emancipation  of  the  Jews  in  the  Balkan 
States,  but  the  persistence  and  impunity  with  which 
Rumania  has  evaded  its  undertaking  in  this  respect,  and 
the  helplessness  of  the  Alliance  during  the  Russian 
troubles  in  1882,  have  led  to  a  subordination  of  political 
activity  in  favour  of  a  vast  educational  work  for  the 
betterment  of  the  Oriental  Jews.  This  has  largely  been 
made  possible  by  the  munificence  of  Baron  Maurice  de 
Hirsch  (1831-1896)  and  his  equally  noble-hearted 
widow,  Clara  de  Hirsch  (1833-1899)-  The  educational 
work  of  the  Alliance  is  supported  by  the  Anglo-Jewish 
Association  (founded  1871),  and  since  1901  the  German 
Hilfsverein  der  Deutschen  Juden  is  rendering  a  great 
service  to  the  cause  of  Jewish  progress  in  the  East.  An 
interesting  development  of  Jewish  self-help  is  the  inter- 
national order  of  B'nai  B'rith  (Sons  of  the  Covenant), 
established  in  New  York  in  1843,  which  has  taken  a 
leading  part  in  Jewish  affairs  in  America.  Philanthropy, 
which  formed  the  most  prominent  feature  in  Jewish  pub- 
lic life  during  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
found  its  highest  representative  in  Sir  Moses  Montefiore, 
who  not  only  gave  very  generously  of  his  own  wealth, 
but  intervened  personally,  and  with  some  success,  with 
the  rulers  of  Turkey,  Russia,  Rumania,  Morocco  and 
Rome,  in  order  to  right  Jewish  wrong  and  to  alleviate 
the  unhappy  lot  of  his  oppressed  co-religionists  in  those 
countries.     His  looth  birthday,  in   1884,  was  an  event 


154  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

of  general  rejoicing  among  the  Jews  all  over  the  world. 
The  culminating  point  of  philanthropic  effort  was 
reached  when  in  1891  Baron  Maurice  de  Hirsch  con- 
ceived the  titanic  scheme  of  transplanting  the  Jews  from 
Darkest  Europe  into  the  light  and  freedom  of  the  New 
World,  and  for  this  purpose  created  the  Jewish  Coloniza- 
tion Association,  which  he  endowed  with  a  fund  of  about 
£9,000,000.  Its  colonizing  activities,  which  are  largely 
being  carried  on  in  the  Argentine,  have,  however,  been 
found  to  be  of  slow  growth,  and  the  authorities  of  the 
Jewish  Colonization  Association  have,  therefore,  thought 
it  advisable  to  utilize  a  considerable  part  of  its  resources 
for  the  economic  and  educational  relief  of  the  over- 
whelming Jewish  misery  in  Eastern  Europe.  Even 
as  it  is,  only  a  fringe  of  the  vast  problem  can  be 
touched. 

§  13.  Anti-Semitism. — The  outburst  of  national 
feeling  consequent  on  the  Franco-German  War  in  1870- 
187 1,  brought  a  new  phase  of  Jew-hatred  into  regions 
where  emancipation  had  been  already  achieved.  Con- 
formably with  the  character  of  the  age  and  the  country 
of  its  origin,  the  Jew-hatred  that  made  its  appearance  in 
Germany  was  stripped  of  its  old  religious  fanaticism,  and 
clothed  in  a  new  scientific  garb.  It  was  now  discovered 
that  the  Jew  was  constitutionally  of  an  inferior  moral 
nature  by  reason  of  his  so-called  Semitic  descent,  and 
could  not,  therefore,  claim  equality  with  the  higher  Aryan 
race.  Anti-Semitism,  as  this  "scientific"  Jew-hatred 
came  to  be  called,  found  great  favour  among  the  impres- 
sionable academic  youth,  and  was  spread  among  the 
people  by  demagogues,  like  the  court  chaplain  Stocker, 
and  by  politicians  in  search  for  a  battle-cry.  In  Ger- 
many and  Austria,  there  arose  Anti-Semitic  parties  in  all 
legislative  and  municipal  bodies,  which,  supported  from 
above  by  the  prevailing  feudal  and  clerical  elements,  seri- 
ously threatened  the  hardly  acquired  citizenship  of  the 
Jews.     Anti-Semitism,  however,  had  the  opposite  effect 


THE  AGE    OF    ASSIMILATION  155 

of  arousing  the  self-respect  and  consciousness  of  the  Jews, 
and  proved  a  great  impetus  to  Jewish  solidarity.  In 
1882,  the  theories  of  Anti-Semitism  were  translated  into 
wild  riots  in  Russia,  and  accusations  of  ritual  murder  by 
Jews,  that  claimed  wide  attention,  were  made  in  various 
parts  of  Europe.  But  the  greatest  efiFect  of  Anti-Sem- 
itism, one  of  the  most  remarkable  incidents  in  recent 
times,  was  the  Dreyfus  Affair  in  France  (1894),  ^^ 
which  Alfred  Dreyfus,  a  Jewish  officer,  was  falsely  ac- 
cused of  treason  and  condemned  for  the  purpose  of  oust- 
ing Jews  from  tlie  higher  ranks  of  the  French  army. 
The  Dreyfus  Affair,  which  convulsed  France  to  its  very 
depths,  was  largely  responsible  for  the  anti-clerical  policy 
and  the  separation  of  Church  and  State  following  on  the 
commotion  that  ended  with  the  release  and  rehabilitation 
of  Captain  Dreyfus. 

§  14.  Zionism. — The  rise  of  virulent  Anti-Semitism 
in  cultured  Germany  and  Austria,  and  the  savage  anti- 
Jewish  outbreaks  in  Russia,  brought  about  a  revulsion 
of  feeling  and  hope  within  the  Jewish  ranks  in  Eastern 
Europe,  while  the  Dreyfus  Affair  in  enlightened  France 
led  to  a  partial  revision  of  the  Jewish  outlook  in  Western 
lands.  It  came  to  be  recognized  by  ever-growing  num- 
bers, that  however  desirable  political  emancipation  had 
been  at  one  time,  this  had  not,  and  could  not,  achieve 
the  object  that  formed  the  ra'ison  d'etre  of  the  Jewish 
people,  viz.,  the  full  and  unfettered  development  of  its 
own  innate  forces,  and  that  a  purely  legal  enfranchise- 
ment could  afford  no  solution  of  the  Jewish  social  and 
economic  problems  so  long  as  the  Jews  are  subject  to  the 
will  and  power  of  a  necessarily  dominant  majority  of  the 
non-Jewish  population.  It  was  found  that  Anti-Sem- 
itism is  a  growth  of  envy  and  malice  which  knows  no 
frontiers;  that  even  in  free  countries  the  Jews  are  sub- 
jected to  intellectual  and  moral  pressure  ultimately  en- 
tailing the  loss  of  many  valuable  members;  that  the  very 
Liberalism  that  stands  up  valiantly  for  the  rights  of  the 


156  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

Jew,  hopes  for  the  dissolution  of  Judaism;  that  this  dis- 
solution, forced  by  the  identification  of  the  Jewish  citi- 
zens with  all  the  aspects  of  the  national  life  surrounding 
them,  is  in  actual  progress  and  a  serious  menace  to  the 
perpetuation  of  the  Jewish  people.  These  thoughts,  and 
the  consequent  necessity  for  the  regatherlng  of  the  Jews 
in  their  ancient  land  as  a  political  entity,  were  already 
elaborated  by  Moses  Hess  in  Rome  and  Jerusalem,  in 
1840,  during  the  throes  of  the  emancipation  movement, 
but  the  Russian  atrocities  in  1882  initiated  an  agitation 
for  the  realization  of  this  idea.  Groups  of  people,  known 
as  Chovevi  Zion  (Palestinophiles),  were  formed  for  the 
purpose  of  resettling  Jews  in  Palestine,  and  a  great  suc- 
cess was  achieved  when  their  aims  received  the  support  of 
Baron  Edmond  de  Rothschild,  of  Paris,  who,  with  a 
generous  heart,  poured  out  enormous  sums  of  money  for 
the  creation  of  Jewish  colonies  in  that  country.  The 
continuous  stream  of  immigration  has  introduced  into 
Palestine  once  more  a  flourishing  agricultural  population 
passionately  attached  to  the  soil  of  the  forefathers,  and 
has  again  turned  Jerusalem  numerically  into  a  Jewish 
city.  While  the  movement  had  thus  gathered  strength 
in  the  East,  there  arose  in  the  West  a  new  star  which 
shed  a  brilliant  light  on  the  whole  Dispersion. 

Theodor  Herzl  (1860-1904),  an  heroic  figure,  recall- 
ing one  of  the  Judges  of  Israel  of  ancient  days,  may  be 
said  to  have  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  Jewish  life,  the 
developments  of  which  it  is  not  yet  possible  to  forecast. 
WTiereas  since  the  days  of  Moses  Mendelssohn  it  had 
become  the  aim  of  the  Jews  to  achieve  political  and  social 
equality  by  assimilation  with  their  fellow-citizens  short 
of  religious  dissolution,  the  movement  set  on  foot  by 
Herzl  under  the  name  of  Zionism  declared  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  old  ideal  for  the  preservation  of  the 
Jewish  individuality  and  raised  the  necessity  for  the 
rebirth  of  the  Jewish  people  as  a  self-governing  body 
in   its  historic  home   into   an   object   and    ideal  worthy 


THE  AGE   OF   ASSIMILATION  isf 

of  labour  and  achievement.  This  idea  has,  since  its  in- 
ception at  an  international  Zionist  Congress,  held  in 
Basle  in  1897,  received  the  suffrages  of  the  largest  num- 
ber of  Jews  ever  permanently  united  for  a  definite  pur- 
pose since  the  days  of  Jewish  independence.  The  roots 
that  the  Jewish  renaissance  has  already  struck  far  and 
deep  in  the  soil  of  Palestine  have  given  a  solid  basis  for 
the  aspirations  of  Zionism. 

§  15.  Modern  Problems. — Jewish  life  now  moves 
within  two  poles:  on  the  one  hand,  there  is  the  idea  of 
the  world-wide  dispersion  of  the  Jewish  people  and  the 
adaptation  of  its  individual  members  to  their  dominant 
surroundings;  on  the  other,  the  Zionist  ideal  of  the  con- 
centration of  Jewish  forces  for  primarily  Jewish  ends. 
But  within  these  two  concepts  of  Jewish  policy  and  Jew- 
ish destiny,  there  are  a  number  of  problems — not  only 
religious  or  political,  but  economic  and  social — some  of 
which  are  without  parallel  among  any  other  race  of  men. 
The  Jews,  a  religious  community,  are  yet  held  together 
by  a  racial  solidarity;  closely  identified  with,  and  patri- 
otically devoted  to,  the  conflicting  interests  of  many 
different  nationalities,  the  Jews  yet  retain  a  common 
bond  between  the  most  diverse  elements  of  their  people, 
which  is  now,  as  it  was  already  described  in  the  far-off 
days  of  Xerxes  the  Persian,  "scattered  and  dispersed 
among  the  nations."  The  consequences  of  the  economic 
and  social  upheavals,  which  have  produced  among  the 
Jews  a  hitherto  unknown  class-conscious  proletariat,  have 
hardly  yet  received  adequate  consideration;  the  results 
of  the  intellectual  and  religious  fermentation  by  the 
break-up  of  ancient  Jewish  landmarks,  are  still  in  the 
womb  of  time;  the  effects  of  the  great  migratory  move- 
ments from  Europe  to  the  New  World,  will  form  a 
chapter  in  the  Jewish  history  of  the  future.  But  what-, 
ever  the  future  may  bring  in  its  train,  the  Jewish  past 
has  shown  us  the  remarkable  morale  of  a  world-wide 
people  which,  without  an  inch  of  soil  to  call  its  own, 


1S8  HISTORY  OF  THE  JEWS 

without  a  common  mothex-tongue,  without  a  secular  gov- 
ernment or  even  a  religious  hierarchy,  actively  partici- 
pates in  the  shaping  of  world-events,  and  manifests  a 
vitality  that  goes  from  strength  to  strength. 


THE  END. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Abbott,  G.  F.,  Israel  in  Europe. 

Abrahams,  I.,  Jewish  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

Cassel,  D.,  Manual  of  Jewish  History  and  Literature. 

Dubnow,  S.  M.,  Jewish  History   (A  Philosophical  Essay). 

Fishberg,  M.,  The  Jews:  A  Study  of  Place  and  Environment. 

Friedlander,  M.,  The  Jewish  Religion    (Orthodox). 

Gaster,  M.,  Prayers  of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Jews. 

Goodman,  P.,  The  Synagogue  and  the  Church  (An  Apology  of 
Judaism). 

Graetz,  H.,  History  of  the  Jews  (The  Standard  History). 

Herzl,  Th.,  a  Jewish  State   (On  Zionism). 

Hyamson,  a.  M.,  History  of  the  Jews  in  England. 

Jewish  Encyclopaedia,  The. 

Joseph,  M.,  Judaism  as  Creed  and  Life  (Moderate  Reform). 

Lazarus,  M.,  Ethics  of  Judaism. 

Leroy-Beaulieu,  M.  A.,  Israel  among  the  Nations. 

Lucas,  Mrs.  Henry,  Songs  of  Zion  (Medieval). 

Magnus,  Lady,  Jewish  Portraits. 

MiiLMAN,  H.  H.,  History  of  the  Jews  (Everyman's  Library). 

Montefiore,  C.  G.,  Liberal  Judaism  (Advanced  Reform). 

Oesterley,  W.  O.  E.,  and  G.  H.  Box,  The  Religion  and  Wor- 
ship of  the  Synagogue. 

Philipson,  D.,  The  Reform  Movement  in  Judaism. 

Renan,  E.,  History  of  the  People  of  Israel. 

Schechter,  S.,  Studies  in  Judaism. 

ScHURER,  E.,  History  of  the  Jewish  People  in  the  Time  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Singer,  S.,  Authorized  Daily  Prayer  Book. 

Taylor,  C,  Ethics  of  the  Jewish  Fathers. 

Toy,  C.  H.,  Judaism  and  Christianity. 

Wiener,  L.,  History  of  Yiddish  Literature. 

159 


INDEX 


Aaron,  3 

Abba  Arica  (Rab),  48 

Abraham,  i 

ibn  Ezra,  75 

Abravanel,  Isaac,  loi,  103,  114 

Samuel,  114 

Abtalion,  28 

Abulafia,  Abraham,  no 

Adiabene,  33 

JEWa.  Capitohna,  40 

Agrippa  I,  34 

— 7  n.  35.  36 

Akiba  ben  Joseph,  40,  46 

Albo,  Joseph,  107 

Alcharizi,  Judah,  106 

Alexander  Janna^us,  22 

Alexandra  Salome,  22 

Allgemeine    Zeitung    d.     Juden- 

thums,  143 
Alliance  Israelite  Universelle,  153 
Amoraim,  49,  55 
Amos,  II 

Anan  ben  David,  65,  66 
Anglo-Jewish  Association,  153 
Antipater,  23    . 
Anti-Semitism,  154,  155 
Antokolski,  Marc,  149 
Apollos,  33 
Aquila,  47 
Archelaus,  24 
Aristobulus  I,  22 

II,  22 

Asher  ben  JechitI,  107 
Ashi,  Rab,  55 
Ashkenazi,  Solomon,  116 

Zebi  Hirsh,  118 

Assideans,  25 


Bachya  ibn  Pakuda,  75 
Bar  Cochba,  40 
Bar  Giora,  Simon,  37,  40 
Basnage,  J.  C,  124 
Bedersi,  Jedaiah,  106 
Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  151 

■ of  Tudela,  75 

B'nai  Brith,  153 
Borne,  Ludwig,  131 
Bostonai,  63 
Bulan,  69 
Bush,  Solomon,  150 

Cabbalah,  107-109 
Caro,  Joseph,  115,  141 
Chasdai,  Abu  al-Fadhl,  72 

Crescas,  107,  127 

ibn  Shaprut,  69,  71 

Chassidim,  120,  122 

Chazars,  67-69 

Chushiel,  71 

Cremieux,  Adolphe,  131,  152 

Daniel,  14 
David,  6 
Deborah,  5 

Del  Medigo,  Elias,  114 
Disraeli,  Benjamin,  132 
Donin,  Nicholas,  104,  105 
Donmeh,  the,  112 
Dreyfus,  Alfred,  155 
Dunash  ibn  Labrat,  71,  72 
Duran,  Simon,  107 


Ebionites,  the,  32 
Eleazar  ben  Kalir,  72 


161 


1 62 


INDEX 


Elijah,  II 

ofVilna,  Ii8,  122 

Essenes,  the,  26 

Estherka,  97 

EybeschiJtz,  Jonathan,  118 

Ezekiel,  11 

Ezra,  the  Scribe,  17,  18 

"Fiscus  Judaicus,"  39 
Frank,  Jacob,  1x2,  113 
Frankel,  David,  134 

Zecharias,  143 

Franzos,  Karl  Emil,  150 
Friedlander,  David,  139 

Gamaliel  I,  47 

H,  47 

Gans,  David,  117 

Eduard,  140 

Geiger,  Abraham,  140,  143 
Gemara  {see  Talmud) 
Geonim,  the,  63,  64 
Gershom  ben  Judah,  78,  79 
Goldfaden,  A.,  138 
Gordon,  Leon,  137 
Gratz,  H.,  140 

"Guide  of  the  Perplexed,"  76-78 
104,  13s 

Hagadah,  27 
Haggai,  16,  27 
Hai,  64 
Halachah,  27 
Hanucah.  21 
Haskalah,  the,  136,  137 
Hasmoneans,  the,  21,  22 
Heine,  Heinrich,  131,  140 
Heller,  Yom  Tob  Lipman,  1 18 
Herod,  23 

Herz,  Henriette,  139 
Herzl,  Theodor,  156 
Hess,  Moses,  156 
Hezekiah,  Gaon,  64 
Hildesheimer,  Israel,  143 
Hilfsverein  der  Deutschen  Juden, 
JS3 


Hillel,  27,  28 
Hirsch,  Clara  de,  153 


Maurice  de,  153,  154 
Samson     Raphael    Hirsch, 


143 


Samuel,  143 


Holdheim,  Samuel,  143 
Hoshea,  8 

Hyrcanus,  John,  16,  22 
Hyrcanus  II,  22,  23 

Immanuel,  of  Rome,  114 
Isaac,  I 

ben  Sheset,  107 

of  Troki,  118 

Isaiah,  11 

Israel  Baalshem,  120,  121 

Jacob,  2 

Jacobsohn,  Israel,  142 

Jacob  Tam,  79,  91 

Jamnia,  46 

Jechiel,  of  Paris,  104 

Jehoiachin,  10,  14 

Jehoiakim,  10 

Jekuthiel  ibn  Hassan,  169 

Jereboam,  8 

Jeremiah,  11,  14 

Jesus  of  Nazareth,  30-32 

Jewish  Colonization  Ass'n,  154 

Jochanan  ben  Zaccai,  28,  46,  47 

John  the  Baptist,  26,  31 

John  of  Gischala,  37,  39 

Jonah  Gerondi,  104 

ibn  Janach,  72 

Jonathan,  the  Maccabee,  21 

the  prophet,  10 

Josce,  93 

Joseph,  chagan,  69 

Hacohen,  114 

Ibn  Nagdela,  72 

Josephus,  37 
Joshua,  5 

High  Priest,  16 

Josiah,  9 
Jest,  J.  M.,  140 


INDEX 


163 


Judah  ben  Meir,  78 

Chayug,  72 

Halevi,  74 

ibn  Ezra,  73 

Messer  Leon,  114 

Judah  the  Patriarch,  49 
Judas  Maccabeus,  21 
Judges,  the,  j 

Karaites,  the,  65,  67 
Kimchi,  David,  75 
Krochmal,  Nachman,  140 

Lassalle,  Ferdinand,  132 
Lemmlein,  Asher,  1 10 
Leo  Hebraeus,  114 
Levi  ben  Gerson,  107,  127 
Levin,  Rachel,  139 
Levita,  Elias,  114 
Lippold,  129 

Loew,  Judah  ben  Bezalel,  117 
Loewe,  Louis,  152 
Lopez,  Rodrigo,  99 
Lorqui,  Joshua,  100 
Luria,  Isaac,  109,  115 
Luzzatti,  Luigi,  132 
Luzzatto,  Moses  Chaim,  1 18 
,  Samuel  David,  141 

Maccabeans,  the,  20-22 
Maimon,  Solomon,  135 
Maimonides,  Moses,  75-78,  103- 

105,  127,  141 
Malachi,  27 

Manasseh  ben  Israel,  125 
Mapu,  Abraham,  137 
Mar  Zutra,  55 
Maranos,  loi,  103 
Mariamne  the  Hasmonean,  23 
Marx,  Karl,  132 
Maskilim,  136 

Mattathias  the  Hasmonean,  21 
"Meassef,"  136 
Medina,  Solomon  de,  146 
Meir  of  Rothenburg,  105-106 
Meisel,  Mordecai,  85 


Menachem  ben  Saruk,  71 
Mendelssohn,  Abraham,  139 

,  Felix,  139 

,  Moses,  133-136 

Mendesia,  Gracia,  115 
Messiah,  the,  30 
Micah,  II 
Midrash,  27 
Mishnah  {see  Talmud) 
"Mishneh  Torah,"  72 
Molcho,  David,  no 
Montefiore,  Sir  Moses,  152,  153 
Mortara,  Edgar,  152 
Moses,  2  et  passim 

,  the  Torah  of,  3-5,  17,  26,  27 

ben  Enoch,  71 

de  Leon,  109 

ibn  Ezra,  75 

Munk,  Salomon,  141,  152 

Nachmanides,  Moses,  105 
Nasi,  Joseph,  115,  116 
Nathan,  the  prophet,  II 

bar  Isaac  Hacohen,  71,  78 

ben  Jechiel,  114 

,  Ernesto,  132 

"Nathan  der  Weise,"  134 
Nazarenes,  the,  32 
Nehemiah,  17 

Cohen,  1 1 1 

New  Testament,  the,  51 
Nieto,  David,  118 

Obadiah,  chagan,  68 
Onias,  Temple  of,  29 
Oppenheimer,  Joseph  Siiss,  129 
Ottolenghi,  Giuseppe,  132 

Pablo  Christiani,  105 
Paul,  32,  33,  34,  108 
Payetanim,  the,  72 
Petrus  Leonis,  113 
PfefFerkorn,  Johann,  123 
Pharisees,  the,  22,  24,  26 
Philippson,  Ludwig,  143 
Philo-Judaeus,  29,  30  108, 


164 


INDEX 


Polak,  Jacob,  117 

Prince  of  the  Captivity,  48,  49, 

60 
Prophets,  the,  10,  11 
Proselytism,  Jewish,  32-34 
Psalms,  the,  6 

Rabban,  Joseph,  68 
Rapoport,  S.  J.,  140 
Rashi,  79 

Reform  Judaism,  141-144 
Rehoboam,  7 
Reubeni,  David,  no 
Riesser,  Gabriel,  131,  145 
Rossi,  Azariah  dei,  114 
Rothschild,  Lionel,  147 

,  Lord,  147 

Rubinstein,  Anton,  149 

Saadia,  Gaon,  64,  d'j 
Sabbethai  Zebi,  ill,  112 
Saboraim,  55 
Sadducees,  22,  24-26 
Salomon,  Haym,  150 
Salomons,  Sir  David,  147 
Samaritans,  the,  16 
Samson,  5 
Samuel,  6,  il 

ibn  Nagdela,  72 

Sanhedrin,  the,  23 
Sasportas,  Jacob,  ill 
Saul,  6 

Septuagint,  29,  46 
Sforno,  Obadiah,  114 
Shammai,  27 
Shemaiah,  28 

Shemariah  ben  Elchanan,  71 
Sheshbazzar,  15 
"Shulchan  Aruch,"  115 


Shylock,  99 

Sicarii,  24 

Simon  bar  Giora,  37,  40 

ben  Jochai,  109 

— ; —  Duran,  107 
Simon  the  Maccabee,  22 
Smolenskin,  Perez,  137 
Solomon,  7,  8 

ben  Adret,  106 

ibn  Gebirol,  73 

of  Montpellier,  104 

Spinoza,  Benedict,  127,  128 
Steinschneider,  M.,  140 
Suasso,  Antonio  Lopez,  146 
Siisskind  von  Trimberg,  137 
Synod,  the  Great,  18,  27 

Talmud,  the,  49-51 

Tannaim,  27,  46,  49 

Tibbon,  the  family  of  ibn,  104 

Torah  of  Moses,  the,  3-5,  17,  26, 

^27 

Torres,  Luis  de,  122 

Tossaphists,  the,  79 

Wecelinus,  89 
Wise,  Isaac  M.,  143 

Yiddish,  137,  138 
Yom  Tob,  of  Joigny,  93 

Zealots,  the,  24 
Zechariah,  16,  27 
Zedekiah,  10 
Zerubbabel,  16 
Zionism,  155-157 
"Zohar,"  109 
Zunz,  Leopold,  140 


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